Saylorville Lake White Bass

It has been a while since I’ve had a chance to report on any fishing here in Iowa, so I’m thrilled to provide you all with this report. My good friend and fishing partner Randy and I had a chance to get out on Saylorville lake here in Iowa last Monday to try our hand at fishing the lake. Neither one of us have ever fished the lake from a boat so this was going to be a whole new experience. We started the morning off at about 8:00AM and decided we’d try to fish some areas that were marked on a lake fishing map that we had. We ran up to the dam and started trying for some bass. We simply drifted along in about 15 foot of water tossing crank baits and plastics. No even a nibble.

Now keep in mind that we’ve never fished this lake, so we’re learning as we’re going. We decided to run up toward the east side of the lake and try our luck there. We noticed quite a few boats out trolling in an area that had a depth between 15 and 20 feet. So we tied on some crank baits and started trolling. We had a couple quick strikes, but no takers and nothing in the boat. We decided to try drifting crawlers that Randy had brought along, and it wasn’t long before I landed the first fish….a drum..LOL.. hey a fish is a fish right? Well two more of those were boated and in the process of making a decision to start trolling again, Randy hooked a nice white bass while reeling in his worm.

So we decided to troll once again, but here is where trying several different lures is key to success and putting fish in the boat. Since Randy had hooked into that white on a small hook with a worm we opted to troll with smaller baits. He tied on a small ice fishing cast master spoon, I tied on a small 1/8 jig with a pink head and white twister tail. FISH ON… we started hooking into these feisty fish! Our trolling speed was anywhere between 3 to 3.5MPH. I had one fish on the pink/white combo, but decided to change and tie on a Little Cleo spoon, green/silver combo. That color combo increased the number of bites and fish we put in the boat dramatically.

We ended the day with 45 fish between the two of us. We found that as the day progressed the fish moved deeper. We had a great day out on the water. I can imagine we had raised a few eyebrows though. We were fishing from Randy’s Baja ski boat.. LOL… he’d added some rod holders earlier this year and they worked great. Speed was not an issue since we noticed that most were trolling at the same speed we were, and that big engine did pretty good at 3.5MPH. I had brought along an older Humminbird fish finder, very basic technology, but it did the trick. We were able to see the fish, see the bottom and find the drop offs. What more do you need. Sorry that there are not more pics, but wanted to share this great day with you all. Some very important factors are shared here for you all to consider when you are fishing a new body of water. First, find a good fishing map, one that is marked is even better. Keep an eye out for other anglers, see what they are doing, i.e. trolling, jigging, casting etc. Then the other thing is to change your tactics and techniques. Keep trying till you find the right combination. That’s what worked for us. We started at 8:00AM and didn’t land our first fish till almost 11:00AM. We started into the white bass by 12:30PM. Never give up!..LOL.. Hey tight lines and good fishing all!