Cedar River, IA Report 3/25

After an almost four month hiatus from the river, and fishing in general, I was lucky enough to get out and scratch the itch on my favorite body of water with friend and fellow IDA’er Nick Harrison. This morning met us with less than ideal conditions for fishing, with winds gusting to almost forty miles an hour, we decided to sneak out on a brief snow goose hunt before Nick had to head in for work. After bagging five snows and heading up the road for home, Nick called to let me know that his manager at Menard’s had given him the day off, and it was time to hit the river.

As I had mentioned before, wind conditions were far from ideal, and the river conditions weren’t much better. The Cedar is moderately high and very dirty in our neck of the woods, setting up a scenario that has never been very productive for me. We decided to begin trying slack water areas near wintering holes that we had targeted in the late fall and early winter before ice up, and stuck with this program all day. We started out with very little success, boating only sheepers and rough fish for the first two hours. I was almost ready to call it quits when the fish pictured above absolutely teed off on a Chartreuse Pepper BFT ringie and 5/16 head. Fishing was certainly not gangbusters for the rest of the afternoon, but a couple of quality fish definitely made up for the slow spots.

The spots that produced the best for us today were slack water areas adjacent to deep water, and staying away from the dirty water coming out of feeder streams was key in getting bit. We fished a myriad of different baits, but the only thing that seemed to do the trick for walter today was the ‘ol ringworm. Best colors were Chart Pepper, Purple Chart, and Firecracker Chart. These fish were more than willing to eat after we located them, and the local bite should only improve leading up to the spawn, so get out there and make the rod bend!!! The last pic is of a few snow geese that obviously took a wrong turn in South Dakota somewhere.