West Okoboji Iowa Bass Fishing Report

As the June sun heats up the gin-clear water of the Okoboji chain of lakes in Northwest Iowa, the bass fishing heats up right along with it. With temperatures in the mid-60s and the sun shining brightly, both largemouth and smallmouth bass can be found in water as shallow as 3 feet, or on deep weed edges or deep rock piles as deep as 30-plus feet. Although you can pick your technique and target your favorite structure, that doesn’t mean that the fish will necessarily cooperate and make it easy for you.

This weekend marked the third club tournament of the year for the Iowa Great Lakes Bass Club and I was eager to get on the water. I took the day off Friday to scout around and lay out a game plan for Saturday’s tournament. I started off the morning casting tubes and Yum Dingers on shallow rocky points hoping the smallies might have moved in to feed during the low light hours but there were none to be found. I dropped of the edge of the rocky points and still didn’t produce any smallies so I moved on to another location. I moved off the main lake points into one of the bays and began casting Yum Dingers into the shallow brush. That produced several largemouth bass, two over the 15-inch cutoff, but barely. Figuring that was a spot I could hit for a couple of keepers the next day I called it good and moved back out to the main lake.

By this time the sun was getting high and I assumed it may be time to begin pitching the docks. Using a variety of plastics and jigs including 6-inch stick worms, Power Hawgs, tubes, and BFT K-Grubs, I began pitching docks that I thought might produce both largemouth and smallmouth bass. Okoboji is an outstanding lake for fishing docks. I like to find docks that have other relevant structure such as weeds, rock, current, or deeper water nearby. The water was incredibly clear this weekend so I had to stay off away from the dock so as not to spook the bass. Using this strategy produced both largemouth and smallmouth bass over the 15-inch mark with stick worms and tubes in dark colors (greens, browns, blacks, and blues) being the most productive for me.

After hitting the docks for a while I tried to find some larger fish off the deep weed edges. On Friday, the wind made that a little tough for me. On Saturday (tournament day) I made the mistake of waiting too long to hit the deep weeds on the main lake and the pleasure boaters ran me off the water before I had hoped. I did manage some nice post-spawn smallies but there wasn’t a lot of weight to them. Some of the other anglers did really well though. A few got into some chunky largemouth and a couple of guys found some very healthy smallies willing to chew on their offering. Many bass were caught and a ton of fun was had by everyone. I want to thank the guys in the club for making this experience so great and for helping me become a better bass angler. If you want to learn more about bass fishing in your area, consider joining your local bass club. I highly recommend it!