I am Iowa fished out. The wipers came and have gone….The “big for Iowa” walleyes have came and gone as well. The big gills get old… and the crappie fishing is still fantastic. I am ready for perch and walleye, and more than anything else…the challenge of new water! I guess I should step back a bit, Ice fishing in Iowa can be as good if not better than anywhere else, where else can you catch walleye, wipers, 11″ gills, and 12-14″ crappies? So rather than being “fished out” with Iowa, I am ready for new horizons.
The wiper bite this year received a lot of attention, and I opted to stay away from the area during early ice. Which in turn has proved a good call. The fish are still there and are willing to cooperate if you catch them in the right mood. The traffic on Macbride is slowing, and I am able to fish alone and away from the crowds.
Same patterns are holding true from year to year, find the shad, find the shad, find the shad, and you will find the predator fish. Interestingly enough, this year, for whatever reason, the shad are riding extremely high in the water column. At or five feet below is where I am constantly marking the roaming schools of baitfish. Match those shad, with a 1/4 blue/silver foil lightning spoon, and your on ’em!
The first ice walleye bite on our smaller interior rivers is beginning to slow. Good fish can still be iced, with a good amount of walking, and determination. Remember to find un-pressured areas, and don’t be afraid to fish the shallow water. The biggest walleyes I have been catching have been coming in 10 FOW or less, with +20 FOW only a few feet away.
For walleyes I have been using my all time favorite spoon from CJS, the blue/silver foil in 1/8 ounce, or 1/4 ounce depending on depth and current. I have also had great success on a 1/8 ounce precision head, with a lively fathead.
I am basically only running two rods when walleye fishing. A 32″ outside perch sweetheart with the 1/8 jig/minnow combo, and the 36″ outside perch sweetheart for my jigging spoons. Turns out, I am also catching wipers, and crappies with the longer perch rod. This is an extremely versatile rod, and if you are looking at trying a rod, that can kill two or three birds with one stone, it would be the 36″ outside rod.
I would also like to talk a bit about “negative” fish. Often times people recommend downsizing, I am the exact opposite, I recommend upsizing. Do you know how many crappies can be caught on a 1/4 ounce slender spoon when they are “negative”? I also opt for no bait. There are always feeding fish, and those fish are easy to trigger with the chase, or with a “fall” presentation. These feeding fish are always easy to pick out, as they are going to be at the top of the school on your flasher. These fish will rocket launch your lure during the chase, causing your line to jump, what a rush!!
What is on the horizon? This time I am going to leave it and head to Leech Lake Minnesota starting Saturday morning with Marshal, Mitch, and Josiah. To say that we are excited would be an understatement. Who knows, I could be begging for Iowa water by monday morning saying I should not have left it, but hopefully not! Love it or Leave it, part II is in full swing!
Good luck, stay safe, and we’ll see ya on Leech!
1- Tom Nugent with a true 11″ Iowa bull!
2- Mitch doing his best-
3- Beautiful picture over my favorite Lake-
Luke, Hope leech treats you guys well. Wish I was going with ya. Fished it a couple times last summer & had a blast with the eyes. Thanks for the Iowa report. Good fishin
Great read Luke
Learning new waters has been a blast for me this year
Good luck on Leech!
Well done Luke and the pic of that 11″ gill absolutely kicks butt!!
Good luck on Leech.
The Iowa fish can rest easy for awhile 
Great Job Luke!
Good luck on Leech
Great report Luke
That’s an awesome bumpy head 11″ gill.
Have fun in MN!
How can an 11″ gill get old???
Haha, probably in the same way walleye’s get old to you guys and you go after perch or panfish. Gills grow huge here, and they are they easiest to target. In my area we don’t have any weeds, so if you find structure your on the gills immediately. And if your on good structure, your on the big bulls.
I might catch a little grief on this statment, but I would rather target big bulls vs walleyes…reason is that typically the walleye window is very short during the day, gills are typically fish that will stay active. They are a blast to catch when they do the circle fight up the hole…
i would have to agree with calvin. when you talk like that it sounds like you are to good to catch fish in any body of water. i am not sure if you wrote the book on catching fish but i know alot of people where it doesn’t matter what kind of fish they catch
Nope…that’s not it at all. The buddies that are heading north and myself want to target new water and new species. Our main species here are only crappie and gills. I have never caught perch in my area. Your guys main species are perch and walleyes. And you also have great panfishing. The gills we chase here don’t have weeds to hide in…so they are extremely easy to target…
We want perch and walleyes…because they are extremely rare here…
I bet that carp put up a good fight. Did you guys think it was a monster walleye for a while?
Cal when are we headin to Iowa? 11 inch gills u bet. Pretty fun to catch on light tackle. Caught a few 9.5 inchers last weekend and wow do they fight.
Great Report Luke.
Thanks for sharing your ice season success with us, it looks like you’ve had a lot of fun already. Good luck up north, the walleye on Leech were on fire this past summer, and I hear the bite is still going strong. Maybe you’ll get into some of the jumbo perch or or a pout or two.
How was the trip to Leech Luke?
Luke,
I wonder if the boss will let us out on the ice in Madison ???
It was brutal, should have stayed in Iowa without a doubt. Had a great time spending it with the boys, but the fishing and the weather was the worst I have seen.
An inch of solid ice the first day we were up there fell on the roads from freezing rain. Two miles per hour to go get breakfast and more bait. Then more of that, snow, rain, sleet…and then the 45 mph winds kicked up. And if you wanted to catch walleyes, you had to catch them at depths of over 40 fow-
That makes it pretty tough to really get agressive and go into search mode like a person normally has to do the first time on a lake. Did you guys get any action from the perch?