Iowa City Ice Fishing Report

[JIvers]

Got out for the first time this season today; my first drop down the hole produced a 10" crappie, which is a good way to start the season.

The pond I hit today is not the best for fishing, but it has a decent population of bluegill, some crappie, and mostly small largemouth. But it freezes up quick, so it is usually my first ice trip of the year in Johnson County. I didn't get any more crappie today, but I caught a lot of bluegills, with enough respectable ones to make a meal. I also got one typically small bass.

By this weekend I am sure some of the better ponds down here will be safe to fish if we don't get too much snow, and maybe Macbride might be ready as well. But, the ice season is here in southeast Iowa!

[kiowa]

'eyehunter,

Do you know if they dropped the water level in macbride again this year? If they did I'm not even going to bother going out there. The last two years when the road was being serviced I had the worst luck, but the previous years I did really well.

Otherwise I have a few ponds with some monster gills in them that should be entertaining.....

[JIvers]

'eyehunter,

Do you know if they dropped the water level in macbride again this year? If they did I'm not even going to bother going out there. The last two years when the road was being serviced I had the worst luck, but the previous years I did really well.

Otherwise I have a few ponds with some monster gills in them that should be entertaining.....

I have heard nothing about a water level drop, and the last two years they started the drawdown in October. The DNR announced the drawdown on their HSOforum the previous years, and did not do so this year, so hopefully that is done.

It pretty much ruined ice fishing for me on Macbride the last two winters, too. My best spots were all only a few feet under the ice, too shallow to hold fish.

[JIvers]

Figured I'd get out this afternoon and hit a pond before the rain, snow, and forty-degree temperature swing mess things up for the weekend.

I caught a bunch of decent bluegills and a bonus 10" crappie; tonight the fish were pickier, and wanted only a waxie on a bare hook, whereas a couple days ago they were smacking waxies on pink jigs.

I had about 4" of good ice beneath me, although the very top had some water on it from the warm snap today. This was in Johnson County.

[JIvers]

I've not had good luck on Macbride so far this winter; good thing the bluegill bite on the ponds has been very good. i have one pond that kicks out a few 9" bluegill every time I fish it, and another that has a lot of 8" fish in it.

The ice is just fine around Iowa City, and I don't think the snow cover will hurt it. However, if this snow stay on the ice for a while and blocks the sunlight, the good action I have going now is not going to last, as the weeds will die and oxygen levels in small farm ponds will drop.

[JIvers]

I haven't fished ponds around IC much lately, but for a change of pace I hit one tonight that kicks out good numbers of decent bluegill with an occasional crappie thrown in.

The fish acted like fish who have been locked under ice for almost two months--very picky. I had my camera down, and most fish showed no interest whatsoever in my bait. After 5:00 I caught a few nice bluegills, but by that point in time I wasn't keeping any, so everything got put back.

Back to fishing walleye in the morning...

[JIvers]

Ice-fishing on the ponds around Iowa City is done for the season.

I went out and checked several ponds around here, and found that the shoreline ice has mostly given out on these smaller waters. Beyond the open water at the edge I found five or six inches of very soft mushy ice. It held me up, and may even have been better farther out over deeper water, but I will not chance it.

This long warm spell and frequent rain really did the ice season in early down here: hard to believe I was ice-fishing for walleye over current at the Coralville Tube only a week ago. If we were to get a cold snap for a few days it might save the ice down here, but it does not sound like we will get it.

[JIvers]

The countdown to ice-fishing in the Coralville-Iowa City area begins!

I moved down to Iowa City from Minnesota in 2001, but my first few winters here I was usually busy, and did not get out on the ice as early as I could have, so I threw those years out. Here are my first ice fishing trips in and around Johnson County since December of 2005: I included both the first time I got out on small ponds, which freeze up quickly, and Lake Macbride, which being a good deal larger and deeper takes longer to freeze:

2005: I first ice-fished a pond on December 8

2006: I first ice-fished a pond on December 8; this was the year a heat wave hit in mid-December, taking out all the ice around Coralville until after New Years

2007: I first ice-fished a pond on December 6; Macbride on December 16

2008: I first ice-fished a pond on December 11; Macbride on December 17

2009: I first ice-fished a pond on December 11; Macbride on December 27

2010: I first ice-fished a small pond on December 7; Macbride on December 15

The first ice dates down here seem to be pretty consistent; if the long-range forecasts for Iowa City are right, it'll probably be until at least December 6 before I do any ice fishing in Johnson County this year, too...but that's still just four weeks away.

[JIvers]

Well, no ice-fishing in Johnson County on December 6 this year.

We had skim ice on the small ponds around Coralville, but the rain on Saturday took care of that in short order. I expect them to be iced over again this morning, but it doesn't look like we are going to have the sustained cold temps needed to make good ice down here in southeast Iowa for a while yet.

[JIvers]

Several ponds in Johnson County that were open yesterday now have a half inch of ice on them, with more cold temps tonight. That's a good start.

However, between the snow expected tomorrow night (even a little snow is a bad thing to have on an inch of ice) and the highs above freezing forecast for every day after Friday, I think I'll have to make a trip north if I want to fish hard water any time soon.

Unless the long-range weather outlook changes, I don't expect to be fishing Macbride before Christmas.

[kiowa]

Any fishable ice on farm ponds in SE Iowa?

[JIvers]

I found 2.25" on a small pond by Coralville Saturday morning. That is enough ice for some people, but not for me.

I bet there was 3" of clear ice there Sunday morning; I am also sure some people went out on ponds as far south as I-80 yesterday.

I myself headed up to SE Minnesota on Saturday and did some fishing on the Mississippi backwaters, so I missed out on what was probably the one day I could have gotten out ice-fishing on ponds around Iowa City.

After today I do not expect to see fishable ice this far south for some time, if the current forecasts are right.

[JIvers]

Yesterday's rain around Iowa City finished the job on what ice we had--every pond I drove past today is now wide open.

Time to get the boat out.

[JIvers]

Based on the fifteen-day forecast, which we know is never wrong, we will probably be ice-fishing ponds around here on New Year's Eve.

[JIvers]

This is the worst winter for ice-fishing I've had in ten years down here.

Highs in the forties are now forecast for most days in Johnson County through January 12.

This warm spell and rain coming may make the ice on Clear Lake too sketchy to be worth driving up there after tomorrow, so I will be getting the boat out next week and hitting the Mississippi tailwaters if I have the time to fish.

I'm not posting on this thread again until I have something positive to report about ice conditions around here.

[JIvers]

FINALLY.

First ice for winter 2011-12: January 15!

I got out on a small pond in Johnson County, and caught some bluegills this morning. Nothing great, but it was nice to go ice-fishing without making a 2.5 hour drive to do it. Plus, this pond looked to be in the best shape this morning for safe ice.

I checked this pond Friday morning before leaving for Clear Lake, and it had thin rotten-looking ice on most of its surface, a thin ribbon of open water on the west shore due to the wind, and drifts of snow on top of that rotten ice on the east shore. This is the same pattern I saw on other ponds around Coralville, with some having more open water than this one on Friday.

This morning, once I got past the 2" of new ice eight feet out from shore where the open water was Friday, I found about 3.5" of pretty good ice with my spud bar. I was close to breaking through on the thin ice at shore, but the water there is no more than a foot deep.

As mentioned above, the other ponds I checked around IC on Friday had a mix of rotten ice kept clear of snow by the wind, open water on the north and west shores, and snow drifts on the rotten ice, mostly near the east and south shorelines. That is going to make for sketchy ice conditions for a few days, as what was open water is going to have thinner ice than what stayed sealed on the same pond. The shorelines with snow on them should probably be avoided. Of course, there is another warm spell coming for a couple days, so we might get to do all this again.

[aanderud]

Feb 21 of last year to Jan 15 of this year. You almost made it a whole year without fishable ice! How was the fishing?

[kiowa]

Finally made it out on Sunday too, although I was none to impressed with the ice that I found. Iced a really nice large mouth, didn't have any action from the bull gills though.

More importantly, it was nice to get out on the ice and hear the birds sing and wind blow through the pine needles!

We should make some ice over the next 3 days, maybe Macbride by the weekend?

[JIvers]

I went out again Sunday afternoon, and fished the same two holes I drilled that morning. The shoreline ice barely held me up going out and back, although the 3.5" off-shore was still OK.

The fishing was much better Sunday afternoon, as I had a steady stream of bluegills, and one small largemouth, hit my baits as soon as I dropped them down. I chose this pond becuse it offered good ice, but there are several ponds close by that have better bluegills in them. This pond's bluegills definitely offer quantity over quality.

I ended up keeping nine bluegills to go with the six I kept Sunday morning--the biggest in the first photo was about 7.5". I also got a small hybrid sunny, shown in the second picture:

[JIvers]

With the forecast looking bleak for ice-fishing around IC, I got out on a small pond in Johnson County this afternoon. I caught a bunch of small bluegills between 5:00 and 5:30, but nothing great.

More important was the state of the ice. The shoreline ice was already starting to rot, and by tomorrow night a person would probably need a plank to get out.

There was still, as the picture shows, about 7" of ice farther out from shore, but with highs in the fifties (!), wind, and sun in the forecast all week, that ice will not stay safe long, even if you can make it out from the shoreline.

I'm going to carefully try Macbride tomorrow morning, and then it may be a while before I hit the ice in Johnson County again.

[JIvers]

The weather forecast looks very good for the next four days. Yesterday, it was supposed to hit forty-five in Coralville, and I'm not sure it even hit thirty here. I wish the forecast would be wrong like that more often.

I'll be ice-fishing in Johnson County before this weekend. I think with a little caution both small ponds and Lake Macbride will be good to go.

[kiowa]

Has anyone been out to the "sand pits" on Sand Road in Iowa City this winter? I know the DNR stocked a bunch of rainbows in there this fall and I was wondering what people have heard or exprienced out there.

[JIvers]

I've heard of a few people getting out on the Sand Lake when the ice was good, but not much in the way of details. The IDNR is scheduled to stock it with rainbow trout again at the end of March, and I bet there are plenty of trout left from the late fall stocking.

[JIvers]

I fished one of my small reliable ponds tonight in Johnson County; I found about 6" of good ice, definitely an inch or two less than I found on the north arm of Macbride last night. I was hoping the ponds had put on more ice than that during the cold spell, but that doesn't seem to have happened. As it warms up this week, the pond ice should go quicker than that on Macbride.

As for the fishing, I couldn't get out until after 4:30, but I didn't see that as a big deal, since a few weeks ago the bite there and elsewhere didn't start until sunset.

Tonight, though, the sunnies were biting when I got there, and things slowed down after 5:30. The fish were higher in the water column tonight than I've seen there this winter, too. Maybe the different patterns tonight were due to the new snow cover blocking a lot of light?

This pond consistently produces bluegill with an occasional crappie thrown in, but I think the size of the sunfish has dropped the last couple winters, and tonight was more of the same. I kept two nice bluegills, and two smaller ones that swallowed the hook. But, I did catch plenty of fish.

[kiowa]

eyehunter-

I'm surprised that the DNR is going to stock Sand Lake with trout in the spring, I thought that lake turns into a boiling quagmire in the summer. Are they hoping they get fished out before then? Seems like a waste to me. I understand the fall stocking if they had extra fish they were looking to unload for ice fishing... I guess it might be spring fed, but most of that lake is 5-7 feet deep with only a few deeper flats on 10-12. What are your thoughts?