Pflueger Master

As far as Iowa goes for Largemouth there are some good lakes of different sizes throughout Eastern Iowa. Not sure if you are into river fishing or not but the Mississippi River along the Iowa/Illinois border has some pretty good Smallmouth and Largemouth pools along it. As far as lakes go I guess it just depends how far you want to drive and if you have a boat or not, boat is absolutely necessary to fish the Mississippi pools. Down by Muscatine there is a place called Deep Lakes Park, along the river, that has some good fishing although I have never been there but have heard good things. Here are a few places to consider for lake fishing in Eastern Iowa: Lake Belva Deer near Sigourney, IA is one of the best places to catch Largemouth in Iowa, 6-9lbers are routinely caught here which is amazing for Iowa. Belva Deer is a newer lake in the last 20 years and is a flooded timber and trees can stick 20 feet out of the water even in 30 ft of water, really cool place especially if you have a boat. Iowa Lake(Iowa County), Pleasant Creek State Park near Palo(currently under renovation), Lake Darling(recently renovated), Lake McBride State Park near Solon(1200 Acres), and Coralville Reservoir are some of the places that produce good numbers of fish. Lake McBride is probably the most diverse lake around with the differnet types of fish such as walleye, muskee, pike, and some good wiper fishing. Google the Iowa DNR website and they have a pretty good database of all the bodies of water in Iowa, you can even search by county to find places near you. They also send out a fishing report every Thursday that is helpful. Hope this helps at least a little for you. There is plenty of time to plan out fishing next Spring with winter here. High is supposed to be -17 here Sunday with wind chills of -35 so fishing cant get here soon enough. On average it is usually March before the bass start acting up around here again.

I still prefer the Endura Max for variable speed but yes that is absolutely a great price. Good find!

Fantastic to have some anglers from the upper midwest! Thanks for joining.

New to the forums from Iowa but have been lurking for the last couple of months. I'm a pretty uninteresting person if you ask me but I love to fish. I'm actually just getting back into fishing the last couple years, only 28 years old. Once I got to high school I rarely fished due to all the time I had to dedicate to school sports and this was the same issue in college because of academics. Now I just work for a living and the time is there to fish apart from working 50 hours a week. Largemouth fishing in Iowa might not be the greatest because we don't have some of the big ones you may see down South, I believe the state record in Iowa is around 10 or 11 pounds. My personal best was just over seven pounds out of Cedar Lake near Winterset Iowa fifteen years ago and it was caught on a red craw colored Rat-L-Trap. Most all fish that I catch are released. I may keep a few crappie from time to time but that is it. I truly believe that catching and releasing Largemouth is critical in the state of Iowa to grow our bass population. I have a small bass boat so I am not too fond of bigger lakes or rivers and prefer places under five hundred acres. My favorite tackle options are the Chatterbait series, many styles of deep diving crankbaits, and soft plastics like crayfish and worms. I am pro Pflueger all the way since the value is great for the money and the reels last a while if taken care of. I try to get Kunnan rods for all my reels but this is a now impossible task since the warehouse apparently burned down in 1990? The Kunnan medium heavy rods I have are in great shape. I've come to bass resource to better my fishing knowledge and better understand fishing tactics. Happy to be aboard and I look forward to many future discussions. -Ryan

I am also in the same dilemma. For the time being I threw my TRI35 on a 6' Rhino Ultra Light rod that I found discounted for $20. The rod is okay actually but the tip of the rod has a built in glow stick which is kind of corny. I'm going to look for a Pflueger rod if possible on ebay as I know they make Trion rods. Hopefully they have some six footers out there. I use this pole for crappie only. I have thought about getting a 6'6" rod for it so I can throw light bass lures such as a jitterbug.

I am new to this board and wanted to share my vessel with everyone. I have purchased my dads 1998 Buster Boat by Splash Marine. He found a 2008 Buster Boat and decided he could sell his old one to me at a fair price. This boat is often talked about on here as one of the best mini bass boats ever made and at 18 years old it is still going strong, the trailer has had modifications as has the boat. Two livewells were added as well as a switchboard for front and rear spotlights, fishfinder, livewell lights, a 12 volt charging port(for phone), and a switch each for the livewell pumps. This little boat has all the bells and whistles with a 55lb thrust Endura Max Minn Kota plus a rudder it moves swiftly. Hard for my dad to let it go but his 2008 has only been on the water a few times so its nice.

Here in Eastern Iowa a few weeks ago the water temperatures were struggling to build due to some off and on chilly nights. I was down at Lake MacBride around the time you made the first post in this thread and the water temperature around that time was around the mid 50's. That doesn't mean it wasn't possible to catch any bass at that point but the Largemouth are not very active at that time when you have nights dipping into the 30's, your best shot is probably a crankbait in 15-25 feet of water. I was also not able to have any luck at the time you originally posted although I did manage to land a Northern Pike using a seven inch Zoom trickworm in the bubblegum color. From my expierinces at most lakes here in Eastern Iowa the bass fishing is best from late Summer into the Fall. I feel like the bass population at MacBride can struggle from time to time due to the bigger fish that are present there, muskee, walleye, and northern. I'm also fairly new to fishing the area so take my words with a grain of salt. I am going to explore new lakes in the coming weeks like Belva Deer near Sigourney, Pleasant Creek near Palo, and Lake Iowa Park in Iowa county. Lake MacBride is cool though since it is the only place in Iowa to catch Kentucky Spotted Bass.