fishing reports Lake Macbride Fishing Reports

[JIvers]

I fished the north arm of Macbride yesterday.

First off, to echo the IDNR fishing report for the lake, most of the ice I covered was safe, but I found a couple of bad spots over deep water. Two different times I hit patches where snow piled up or meltoff pooled, and found a half inch of crust, a half inch or so of standing water beneath it, maybe two or three inches at best of white ice below that, and then twenty feet or so of open water underneath it all. Not good.

I wanted to hit some of my double-secret probation walleye spots, and almost got to them, but decided I didn't want to head back by myself in the dark across sketchy patches of ice. So I headed back to some of the community cover in the sailboat cove and caught some typical Macbride bluegills. The ice there was probably 4" to 5" thick, and in pretty good shape.

The walleye will have to wait until things thicken up, and with a half foot or so of new snow on top of the ice that may be a few days yet.

[JIvers]

I decided to hit Macbride yesterday for the first time since December to see if the walleye bite had turned on. It has not, at least where I fished.

I set up on the edge of a rock pile that gets no pressure at all from anyone besides me in the winter, so far as I know, and fished three lines from an hour and a half before sunset to a half hour after sunset. I split my presentations between panfish and walleye, wiper, and channel cat...and did not get a bite.

I marked a few, well, something, but none of what I marked showed any interest in my bait, and could have been shad or water bugs. I have caught some nice walleye, catfish, and crappie, and a lot of Macbride bluegill, in this exact spot, so I know that was not the problem.

Macbride has not been good the last few winters, and has been even worse this winter by all accounts--that is why I had not been out there since before Christmas--so I wasn't expecting much, but hoped I was wrong.

The "good news" of my Macbride report is that there was still plenty of good ice the second week of March: even the shore was in good shape with just a little water standing on it. If nothing else works out this weekend I may try Macbride on Sunday before the ice there goes bad, just because I want to believe the pre-spawn walleye bite has to turn on soon.

[JIvers]

I got my boat out on the water for the first time this year, and everything rain right. That was the good news. The bad news is my open water season on Macbride picked up right where ice season left off on that lake.

The surface temps over deep water yesterday afternoon were between 54 and 58 degrees, so the walleye spawn should be done and the crappie should be staging off the edges of the creek channels for their pre-spawn. Fishing there should be good very soon.

Yesterday, though, nothing worked for me. I marked a lot of fish on the edges of the creek channel in 23'+ of water, which is typical for this time of year, but did not pick up any hits with crankbaits, shiners, or jigs. The water was also still very dirty from last weekend's rains.

[JIvers]

The COE dropped the flow coming out of Coralville res. for a few days to let the high water from the Cedar go down below the confluence at Columbus Junction, so my Iowa River high water walleye spots are mudflats right now. With nowhere better to go and a nice evening I took the boat out to Macbride, not expecting much.

Instead of a slow day, I had my best open water outing on Macbride in over a year. I started by anchoring up on the edge of some rock and fishing live bait. I was hoping for channel cat, but expected bluegills. The catfish did not show up, but the bluegills did. They were, however, the best sunfish I have caught out of there in a couple years. I kept eight bluegill between 7" and 7.5", which is middling at best for many waters but pretty good for Macbride bluegills.

Having a meal of sunnies, I pulled up anchor and started trolling crankbaits. My first hit was an 18.5" walleye, and I followed that up with a 15" walleye. A few white bass hit my lures as well, and I finished up with an 18" wiper. This was in less than an hour of pulling cranks.

So, I may be out on Macbride again fairly soon, weather permitting...

[JIvers]

So about those low water levels around Iowa City and Cedar Rapids...

[JIvers]

This was a Lake Macbride weekend for me, since the Iowa and Cedar Rivers remain above flood stage. Good thing Macbride cooperated for the three day weekend.

Friday and Saturday mornings, I got in to pretty good bluegill bites on Macbride--yes, bluegill--with a few crappie thrown in, although none of the crappie were over 8" or so. A couple of the bluegill actually made 8", and quite a few more were at 7" or over. Not great for Belva Deer or a Mississippi backwater, but on Macbride I am happy with the fifteen or so 7"-8" bluegill I took home. Those fish started hitting after sunrise on the edge of rock piles on a crawler. That is what the few crappie caught wanted, too. Trolling crankbaits produced nothing at all Friday and Saturday.

After yesterday's rain, I went out again early this morning, and started things off with a 14" white bass that hit a shad colored crankbait. That was a good start, but the bluegill and crappie were not hitting on the same rockpile that worked so well yesterday.

I only caught one bluegill while anchored up, although I did get a decent spotted bass and a nice largemouth (something I seldom get on macbride) that hit crawlers, plus a 21" channel cat I let go after it hit a live shiner on a slip bobber. I moved to another part of the lake to see what I could there.

I trolled shad colored crankbaits over some rock piles, and had a 15" channel cat hit one pretty quickly. Then I caught this 25" walleye, the highlight of my weekend on Macbride:

It is not the best picture, but it was a nice walleye.

More rain is coming tonight to Johnson and Linn County, so when I have a chance to fish it will probably be on Macbride for a while.

[aanderud]

Wow that walleye actually has some shoulders for a 25 incher! Nice catch.

[JIvers]

I hadn't been out on Macbride since July, so I decided to get out there this morning and see how the fall bite was going this year. This morning, it was slow.

Trolling crankbaits netted me a couple of white bass, but that was all. No walleye, no crappie. No luck drifting with tube jigs and jigs and minnows, which in the past works very well on Macbride in the fall.

I did not see any boils on the surface where the predator fish were feasting on shad, so this may have just been an off-day. Whether I get out there again before ice-fishing or not remains to be seen.

The surface temps on Macbride this morning were in the upper fifties, and according to my sonar the thermocline is still there at about ten feet down, so the lake has not turned over yet.

[JIvers]

I drove across the Macbride causeway this morning; the south arm west of there is mostly skimmed over, but that ice will probably be gone by Monday.

East of the causeway, which is shallower than most of the south arm, there were two portables set up in the shallow bay on the south side:

So, somebody has already been on the ice fishing at Lake Macbride this winter. I am going to wait until the main parts of the north and south arm lock up before I try it, and that will probably be a couple weeks or more yet.

[JIvers]

There were several people on the ice east of the Macbride causeway again yesterday morning. I did not stop to check the ice, but I think they are braver than I am.

[JIvers]

The area east of the causeway on Macbride is completely frozen over again. No one has been out in the little cove on the south side yet, but I am sure someone will be there by this weekend.

There are long patches of open water on both the north and south arms this morning, probably because of the wind. With the temps warming up for a couple days I would be very surprised if anyone fishes anywhere on Macbride besides the area east of the causeway.

With the cold returning after this coming Saturday, the weekend of January 10 looks pretty good for getting out on most of Macbride.

[JIvers]

I did very well fishing the ponds here and the backwaters across from Savannah, Illinois, for panfish this weekend, so I was playing with house money so far as fish in the fridge was concerned. So this afternoon, I headed out to Lake Macbride to look for walleye.

Good call. My first walleye through the ice for this season was this little guy:

He bit right before sundown, which is right when prime time starts for walleye on Macbride. For the next twenty minutes or so, I had a lot of fish checking out my lures, but no commits. That is typical for Macbride, where the fat walleye, well fed on shad, are happy to check a bait out, but if everything isn't right they drop away without hitting it.

Then at about 5:20, just as I was getting ready to head in, I had a thump on one of my lures. A couple minutes later I pulled up this 20" walleye:

This fish inhaled the lure, but luckily for her the hook came out easy, and I could release her after the pic. No more bites after that, but any day where I catch multiple walleye through the ice on Lake Macbride is a good day.

While the sun was still up I caught a lot of starving Macbride bluegills. How hungry they are shows in this photo, where a sunfish hit one of the jigging raps I was using:

I think I'll be out there again next weekend, looking for walleye. The walleye bite on Macbride, in my experience, is best at early ice and late ice, so I want to hit it soon before the mid-winter slump kicks in.

[JIvers]

I can now definitely this is the best ice walleye bite on Macbride I've been on for a few winters now. I'm heading back out tonight to hit them again while the pattern is still hot. I would like to be out there every night, but tax season is the busy season at work, and I can't get the time off now.

Here is one of those fat shad-fed Macbride walleye, a sixteen-inch fish I got a couple nights ago:

I have not found a good crappie bite on Macbride this winter (again), but with the walleye biting I see no need to go looking for the crappie.

[JIvers]

I tried a different spot I found on Macbride last summer, and pinpointed earlier this month. When i got set up this afternoon I immediately started catching small bluegills, which I've learned is a good sign when looking walleye out there. Before sunset, this little walleye came up off the bottom and smacked the panfish rig I was using:

That was the first of five walleye I caught before 6:00 PM; unfortunately none of those walleye were over a foot long at best. The IDNR fishing report for this week said most of the walleye being caught out there are small, but today was the first time this winter I did not get any decent fish. http://www.iowadnr.gov/Fishing/FishingReports.aspx

There was still about 8" of good ice where I was tonight, and I am hoping enough of that holds up through the week so I can get out there and try for some better walleye next weekend.

[JIvers]

I only iced two small walleye in the rain tonight on Macbride. I did lose a nice fish about a half hour after sundown, but as I did not see it I cannot say it was a walleye.

The bluegills were biting well before the sun went down, which is usually a good sign for walleye fishing in this spot. They were Macbride bluegills for the most part, but I did bring home seven bluegill that at least made 7" in length. Those are keeper sunfish on Macbride.

The ice seems to have held up better than I expected after the warm temps this week. I had at least eight inches of good ice below me tonight. After the snow is done we are going to have to contend with slush for a while down here around Coralville and Cedar Rapids, as is pretty much everyone else in Iowa.

I would like to get out tomorrow and see if I can catch the fish I lost tonight, but the weather does not sound good for driving to the lake, or keeping warm once I get there. Maybe I'll just watch the entire Super Bowl instead.

[JIvers]

I caught a few decent-sized crappie out of Macbride this past weekend on one of my favorite walleye ice fishing spots on that lake. I did not do anything really different at all, but for whatever reason the crappie were in the area after sunset and very aggressive. Nothing dainty required to get them, as these fish were hitting walleye presentations. None were huge, but the crappie I caught were all in the 9" to 11" range like this one, the first I got:

I have not gotten a decent walleye for a few weeks now on Macbride. The ones I got this weekend were all close in size to this one:

I also got the usual amount of Macbride bluegills before the sun set.

Plenty of good ice, probably 8" or so beneath a thin crust of slush in places. The wind earlier blew a lot of the snow off the ice, and the cold temps firmed it up pretty well, so walking was no problem at all.

[JIvers]

I'm giving Lake Macbride a break for a bit. The walleye are still biting well, but the ones I've caught lately are all last spring's stocking class.

The good news is while catching those small walleye I am starting to see some decent crappie out of Macbride. No trophy fish, but decent, like this one from last weekend:

Also plenty of Macbride bluegills, although a few were 7" or over, which is good for Macbride.

I will be hitting Macbride again at late ice, but for now there is a better walleye bite eleswhere near Solon.

[fisherman-andy]

Any reports of Wipers through the ice? Looks like there is some pretty good warm up the next week or two. Ice may be gone soon.

[JIvers]

Earlier this winter people were catching wiper on the south arm, or so I was told.

The wiper tend to hang on the deep dropoffs, and I fish shallower these days through the ice on Mabcride, so I don't get in to many wiper any more.

I haven't been out there in a couple weeks, but now we are in the home stretch. I hope to see some of the bigger walleye start biting again.

[JIvers]

There is plenty of ice on Lake Macbride as of March 8, probably 16" where I was fishing today. It will go quick, but should be good for a few days yet.

I am pretty sure today was my last trip on the ice at Macbride for this ice season. I caught seven or eight walleye, but none of them were over eight inches or so. I did not catch any crappie. The bluegill were biting, of course, but they were smaller than average, even by Macbride standards.

With a good sunfish bite nearby to keep me busy until the ice is no longer safe, I think I am going to wait until the ice is gone and the surface temps are in the mid-forties before I fish Macbride again.

[JIvers]

As of this morning the ice is mostly off the shallower water east of the causeway on the south arm of Macbride.

West of the causeway, there is open water for quite away, probably enough to launch a boat from the ramp on the south shore, but the west side of the south arm still had rotten ice covering most of it.

I saw little of the north arm from the Mehaffey Bridge road, but what I could see had both ice and open water on it.

My experience has been that the bite on Lake Macbride does not really pick up until the surface temps over deeper water are in the mid-forties, so that is what I am going to wait for before going out there.

[JIvers]

I hit Macbride open water for the first time this weekend; the surface temps were right at 47 degrees over deep water at sunrise. As noted, my luck on Macbride always picks up in the spring when the surface temps hit about 45 degrees.

I started out on the edge of the creek channel, which is where the crappie stage before moving shallow to spawn as the water gets warmer. No luck with the crappie, but I did catch a wiper and small white bass. Both hit on minnows.

The walleye spawn should have been done a couple weeks ago, so since the channel edge bite wasn't working I moved in to some of the rock piles to see if some post-spawn male walleyes were there yet, even though in my experience on Macbride that bite won't be going for another week or two. I was right. Nothing happening on the rock edges yet.

The wind and cold we are getting now will probably slow the bite down for a week or so, but we are right on the edge of very good fishing on Macbride. I can wait another couple weeks.

[JIvers]

This past winter was the best ice season I ever had for walleye on Macbride, and also was the best crappie fishing I've seen there for a few winters, too. So I was really looking forward to open water. For the most part, I was disappointed when I went out on Macbride this past spring. I heard of some people doing well on walleye, but while I found those little cigars from last winter I did not get a lot of eaters in April and May. I had a couple of decent outings for pre-spawn crappie in May, but not what I was hoping for.

 

Yesterday morning and afternoon I went out on the north arm of Macbride, and had easily the best fishing since the ice went out. The channel catfish are on the rock piles and biting crawlers and shiners, and the walleye were pounding crankbaits. I had to put up with a lot of bluegills to get the channel cats, but that beats staring at a bobber that never moves.  The spotted bass likewise kept hitting the crankbaits I was trolling for walleye. 

I was fishing off-shore, and did not catch any white bass or wipers, but I talked to a couple boats who were working the shorelines and getting a lot of them.

 

 

[Rick]

Nice pics and fishing dude.

[JIvers]

I hit Lake Macbride for the first time since June this morning, hoping the white bass/wiper bite was on for the fall. It wasn't.  I did not catch a single wiper or white bass, and I did not see any of the tell-tale boils on the surface where gamefish were blowing up schools of shad on the surface.

I caught several walleye, all in the 11"-12" range like the first fish I caught this morning. There were probably some of the 8" walleye I couldn't help catching last winter on Macbride, so next summer they should be of a nice eating size. Besides the walleye, all I got was a 10"-ish spotted bass.

Looks like a trip to the Iowa River is on the agenda for tomorrow morning.