Des Moines River Polk - Iowa. A popular river access is in the Dudgeon Lake Wildlife Area right of Hwy 150 on the North side of Vinton. Iowa's natural resources plates include the state bird and flower, pheasant, eagle, buck and a Brook trout. There are rock and cobble bars every so often, and if you fish those rocky areas with a twister-tail or spinner, it's not hard to pick up smallmouths up to 3 or 4 pounds. Between Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island Illinois. ", McClure has explored long stretches of the Cedar River, the Iowa River and smaller rivers like the Wapsipinicon, Maquoketa and Volga. Natural Resource Plates. After more than 40 years of fishing Iowa's waters for catfish, largemouth bass, crappies, walleyes, bluegills and even carp, I've finally seen the light. Lake Manawa State Park: 1100 South Shore Drive/Council Bluffs, IA 51501 phone: 712-366-0220. If you tend to fish the larger stretches of interior rivers located on the Cedar, Des Moines, and other bigger waters then the typical bass baits that work for largemouth should be just fine for the smallmouth. The amenities list are for Buffalo Shores campground in Buffalo, Iowa. This stretch is found in Chickasaw, Floyd, and Mitchell County. A few decades ago smallmouth were rare throughout Iowa and almost nonexistent below Cedar Rapids. Newly hatched sac fry swim over the nest in a school for about 6 to 15 days, moving sluggishly until all the nourishment in the yolk sac is eaten. Stream Name: Des Moines Gage Zero: 622.00 Ft. NGVD29 Flood Stage:11.5 Ft. Record High Stage:22.15 Ft. Longitude: -92.41111000 Latitude: 41.01083000 River Mile: 94.1 miles above the mouth of the Des Moines River Record High Stage Date: 07/12/1993 Ultralight rods and reels and 4-pound-test line make even 1-pound smallies a challenge to land. By an act of Congress on Aug. 8, 1846, a grant of land was given to the Territor)' of Iowa "to aid in the improvement" of navigation on tlie Des Moines River.'''' Boone River: Hamilton and Webster: From Webster City to confluence with Des Moines River. Iowa’s Cedar River Smallmouth Fishing. Dan Luke, a semi-pro tournament largemouth bass angler from Winterset, reports that one of the state's best-kept secret smallmouth fisheries is just north of Des Moines. Amenities vary by location in Pool 17. She worked in the mortgage industry for thirty years as a loan processor. The ramp at Toolsboro is paved but the road to the ramp is gravel. This means you have the option to read your magazine on most popular phones and tablets. Smallmouth Bass – Fair: Find smallmouth bass on rock piles or on the points. South pond. Amenities vary by location in pool 18. Any Des Moines River tributary can produce chunky smallmouths like this -- if you know where to look. I waded the creek last summer in search of carp for fun and catfish for supper, using night crawlers for bait. Managed by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Lake Manawa State Park has boat ramps on the Missouri River within the park. A slender, streamlined-shaped fish with a moderately large mouth, where the upper jaw reaches about to the rear margin of the eye in adults. Pyloric caeca are not forked in contrast to forked pyloric caeca in the closely related Largemouth Bass. C13. In a few minutes, a 1-pound smallmouth bass struggled in my hand. This stretch is located in Hardin and Marshall County. This park is the start of the Shellrock River Greenbelt and Preserve featuring 7.5 mi. All other streams and rivers in Iowa have 12-inch minimum length limits on smallmouth and black bass, with a daily limit of three and possession limit of six. "When I was stationed in north-central Iowa, a local game warden tipped me off that there were smallmouth bass in some tributaries to the Upper Cedar River in Franklin County," continued Conover. Re-nesting is common for smallmouth, mainly when early nests are destroyed by natural events such as a flood. Food habit studies show that forage fish were in 40 percent of the stomach samples, crayfish in 30 percent and insects in 20 percent. A popular access is found in Kendallville Park and Campground off of Hwy 139 about 8 miles northeast of Cresco. "The water from Saylorville is cool, the sediments are settled out so it's pretty clear, and smallmouths are doing really, really well in that stretch of river. Across the west, look to these areas to find aggressive bass. When fingerling Smallmouth Bass are 1 1/2 inches long, insects and small fish make up the bulk of their diet. A popular access point is Wilkinson Pioneer Park located at the end of CR B20 in Rock Falls. The Des Moines River (/ dɪˈmɔɪn / (listen)) is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the upper Midwestern United States that is approximately 525 miles (845 km) long from its farther headwaters. It doesn't surprise me that you found them in a central Iowa catfish creek. I studied it and memorized its conformation and coloration so I could identify its exact species when I got back to my reference books. This stretch is located in Johnson County. Learn more about two new Elite Archery bows, the Enkore and Remedy, two new broadhead from Slick Trick and a new site from Custom Bow Equipment (CBE). Photo by Dan Anderson. Five olive-green bars radiate backward from the eye, and one forward to the end of the snout. It was a fun little fishery that we had all to ourselves.". Smallmouth showed little fear when schooled and often let anglers wade within 20 feet of the schools. 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