Iowa Urban Trout, Fall 2015

The Iowa DNR seasonally stocks trout in (currently) 17 lakes scattered across Iowa each early Spring and Fall.  The idea is to provide a put-and-take trout fishery in parts of the state where anglers might not otherwise have an opportunity to catch trout close to home.  Increased trout license sales pretty much pays for this program, which is really awesome!

There is no comparison or replacement to fishing NE Iowa's Driftless Region coldwater streams for trout.  But I do enjoy flyfishing these lakes for trout as well, and this situation poses its own unique set of challenges.

Finding the fish is always the most important key to a successful outing.  The saying "90% of the fish are in 10% of the water" seems to hold true.  Once found, you gotta present them a fly they will try to eat.

The best fly seems to change over time.  Trout have teeth and will shred a fly over time, so easy-to-tie patterns get my vote.  Year after year Woolly Buggers in various colors have caught more of these freshly-stocked trout than anything else.  #10-#8 Woolly Buggers seem the perfect size.  Depending on the depth the fish are feeding in, I tie some unweighted, some with glass beadheads, and some with brass and tungsten beadheads.  Best colors often include Gold, "Chili Pepper"(copper-colored), black, white, brown and olive.  The gold and copper ones are flashier, and seem to get the most attention from the fish.

I flyfished one of the Urban Trout lakes 3 days so far this season, and caught 34, 39, and 64 trout, respectively.  Weather conditions covered the spectrum from "good", to "super-windy", to "rain".  You never know what you'll get, you just gotta keep fishing!

Before the Storm

We'd had "nice" weather for the past couple of weeks.  That meant any snow on the ground had long since melted, and the ice on the local lakes/ponds was deteriorating, and I decided to be safe rather than sorry by not fishing.

But, Saturday was the last day of January, 2015.  The DNR was to have stocked a nearby lake with trout earlier in the week, and it was bugging me knowing they were there and I hadn't yet paid them a visit.

I sent text messages to a couple guys I thought might have taken a recent look at that lake.  I was in luck!  One was out there when I sent the text message!  Ice conditions were OK...around 6" thick.  Nobody catching much, unfortunately.

So, I threw my icefishing gear in the vehicle and headed for the lake.

There were a lot of people there, considering the conditions.  It was overcast, 35 degrees F, and drizzling.  The drizzle made the surface of the ice rather slippery.  Apparently there was some open water in one corner of the lake, and a flyfisherman was making me jealous as I watched him casting.  I didn't watch him long enough to know if he caught anything, but he was there for awhile so hopefully he did well.

I ice-fished for 3 hours, didn't see much, other than a couple 12" long rainbow trout that decided to make my day while I was sightfishing the shallower water.

So, not a lot to show for the effort, but it was nice to get out fishing again and catch SOMETHING.

Later that afternoon, the drizzle turned to snow, and it was AMAZING how fast that little bit of precipitation accumulated into 14" of fresh damp snow!

The smaller ponds had extremely questionable ice on them before the rain/snow.  Snow on bad ice can insulate it, preventing it from forming more good ice, even if air temps are conducive to ice production.  Hopefully we'll soon get either better ice, or the ice will disappear, so I can keep fishing!  :)