Iowa's fishing hides in plain sight: the blue-water Iowa Great Lakes, driftless-region spring creeks with wild trout, and farm-pond bass by the thousand. Our anchor is the chain that defines Midwest resort fishing: Lake Okoboji.
Reports current for Friday, October 23
Every one of the 14 Iowa waters we cover has a live read this morning. 12 are scoring 4 out of 5 or better, and none is slow. Water runs 55 F to 62 F. Pressure is falling on most of them, the trend our model scores highest. Wind touches 19 mph on the roughest of them.
Best right now: Cedar River 4/5, Clear Lake 4/5, Coralville Lake 4/5
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
Iowa’s blue-water lake: Lake Okoboji (West Okoboji) is spring-fed, 136 feet deep and full of walleye, smallmouth and bluegill.
Iowa's ocean: the state's big Corps reservoir, grinding out walleye, crappie and wipers across wind-swept southern-Iowa flats.
The big blue sister: Iowa's largest natural lake, grinding walleye classics and jumbo perch across the glacial flats north of Okoboji.
Mississippi River Pool 9: the navigation pool between Lock and Dam 8 at Genoa and Lock and Dam 9 at Lynxville, on the Iowa-Wisconsin line.
Lake Macbride: a 940-acre Johnson County lake that Iowa DNR calls a premier wiper fishery and the only Iowa lake with spotted bass.
The Corps lake above Iowa City: crappie, catfish and stocked walleye, with a fossil gorge below the spillway.
Clear Lake: a shallow 3,684-acre lake in Cerro Gordo County where Iowa DNR stocks millions of walleye fry each spring, protects walleye from 17 to 22 inches and stocks muskellunge.
The shallow twin: East Okoboji is warmer, weedier and fuller of walleye and panfish than its famous neighbour.
Storm Lake: a 3,097-acre natural lake in Buena Vista County, dredged from 2003 to 2017, with walleye under a protected slot.
Saylorville Lake: the Corps of Engineers' flood-control reservoir on the Des Moines River, 11 miles above Des Moines, with crappie, white bass, wipers and channel catfish.
Iowa's largest lake: Red Rock on the Des Moines River holds crappie, white bass, wipers and channel catfish.
The Cedar at Cedar Rapids, where Iowa DNR stocks walleye above and below the city and the river holds smallmouth, catfish and shovelnose sturgeon.
Northeast Iowa’s Driftless river: the Turkey runs smallmouth through bluffs to the Mississippi.
Smallmouth, walleye and nearby trout streams in northeast Iowa, with a catch-and-release smallmouth reach below Decorah.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: April.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Okoboji fishing report | Lake | Dickinson | USGS | Apr |
| Rathbun Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Appanoose | modeled | Apr |
| Spirit Lake fishing report | Lake | Dickinson | modeled | Apr |
| Mississippi River Pool 9 fishing report | River | Allamakee | USGS | Apr |
| Lake MacBride fishing report | Reservoir | Johnson | modeled | Apr |
| Coralville Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Johnson | USGS | Apr |
| Clear Lake fishing report | Lake | Cerro Gordo | USGS | Apr |
| East Okoboji Lake fishing report | Lake | Dickinson | modeled | Apr |
| Storm Lake fishing report | Lake | Buena Vista | USGS | Apr |
| Saylorville Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Polk | USGS | Apr |
| Red Rock Lake fishing report | Reservoir | Marion | USGS | Mar |
| Cedar River fishing report | River | Linn | USGS | May |
| Turkey River fishing report | River | Clayton | USGS | May |
| Upper Iowa River fishing report | River | Allamakee | USGS | May |
Iowa runs three genuinely distinct fisheries: the glacial northwest (Okoboji and Spirit Lake's walleye-smallmouth-muskie chain), the driftless northeast (limestone spring creeks holding wild browns: Yellow River, Waterloo Creek: fished like Wisconsin's famous water without the crowds), and everywhere else's farm ponds and reservoirs where bass and bluegill grow fat on long summers. The Mississippi's pools add walleye, and the border rivers' flathead catfishing is quietly elite.
May: walleye on the Okoboji rocks, driftless caddis afternoons. June: bluegill beds statewide, muskie followers turning. Summer: dawn topwater on the ponds, slip-bobber dusk on the chain, trout creeks at first light. Fall: blade baits on the breaks, the driftless' best weeks. Winter: the ice capital: wheelhouse villages on the Great Lakes chain, bluegills through farm-pond ice everywhere.
The driftless northeast does: spring-fed limestone creeks with wild browns and stocked rainbows in Wisconsin-class scenery. A trout fee added to the license covers it.
Blue, deep, spring-fed clarity unique in the region: walleye and smallmouth over visible rock reefs, plus a century-old resort culture. It is the Midwest's classic fishing vacation, unchanged in the good ways.