dafack01

Check out over at flyanglersonline. I think there are quite a few guys on there from Iowa, including the guy who writes most of the warmwater articles. I think he might even be from the Des Moines area (faint memory of a comment in a past article).

 

I think we have guys here from Iowa as well, but the more contacts, the more info, the better.

I'll check out that website. Thanks deeky!

Im my opinion and experience bass are the least picky of fish. They are monsters for anything. Infact when I was dragging a crawdad pattern off the bottom of the lake in my ol' bass hole... two dragon flies fell onto the water and a sumo sized smallie pounced on them like it was going out of style.

 

Phil

You need to send some of your bass down my way! Bass (especially Largemouth) are notoriously moody around here. Sometimes anything will work, others nothing will. Most of the time it's somewhere inbetween, and I'd hardly call them easy to catch.

I've fished in Michigan's UP before and the bass up there were ridiculously easy to catch. Not down home though.

Thanks all!

Fishing in Iowa eh..well, there's lots of lakes. :dunno:

 

My advice to you is learn how to hunt Pheasant and drink really weak coffee. They make it like Tea out there for some strange reason.

 

If you have half a brain...you WILL root for the Hawkeyes!

 

Good luck and congrats on the new gig...Scotty

As long as the Hawkeyes don't play against my Louisville Cardinals that won't be a problem.

Day5 and madkasel, I did some research after I posted this and found a fly shop in Des Moines that talked about the Smallmouth and Trout fishing in NE Iowa. They also said Central Iowa has some good Smallie fishing, and the Wiper fishing on the Des Moines River in Des Moines is really good.

Stopping by the fly shop is on my list of things to do on Saturday (after I find out where I'm going to watch the Louisville vs. Kentucky game that is).

Looks like I've got some tying to do! Nice stuff! I envision that thing to be a killer Largemouth/Smallmouth/Wiper fly too.

I finished my Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering this past May. All summer I've been looking for a job and finally got one! I just accepted an Industrial Engineering job with UPS up in Des Moines, Iowa. They flew me up for my second interview and it seems like a really neat city. About as big as Louisville (KY, my hometown). The job seems really interesting, as does my new manager. The plan right now is to live up there for a while and then move back to Louisville when the wife and kids come along. Louisville is the headquarters for UPS Airlines, and there is a gargantuan package sorting hub (5.1 million square feet when the new expansions are done) and a 1 million square foot air cargo hub, not to mention the other office buildings around town.

Anywho, I got offered the job this past Thursday, accepted it on Friday, and am moving up there this Wednesday! They're paying for a hotel for the month of September, so I'll be on a mad apartment search.

So now to the really important stuff: What good fishing is there in Iowa? PM me preferably. Also, are there any forum members up there?

I borrowed a video one time with Lefty Kreh tying a bunch of saltwater flies. Since the Clouser will catch anything that eats, the Clouser was on the video. Lefty took 8-10 strands of krystal flash (4-5 strands, tied in and then doubled over on top of itself). After he tied in the krystal flash, he cut the strands randomly to varying lengths. Some were left alone, some were cut to half of their original length, the rest were cut anywhere inbetween. If I had a camera I'd tie one and show you. I hope this makes some sense.

After that, he just tied in the back and tied the fly off.

As far as length, 2-2.5 times the length of the hook is what's generally regarded as "standard" for the clouser.

Cute little girl!

I didn't mean to offend anyone by this post. I just figured women in bikinis are innocent enough, and it's a goofy little quiz to get a laugh. Nothing more.

Buggers will catch anything that swims. Think of a Woolly Bugger as a Tube Jig. That's how I fish it. In streams I dead-drift it, giving it the occasional twitch. Or you could tie on a white bugger and strip it pretty aggressively like you would a jerkbait, crankbait, or a twistertail grub.

In fact, you could make a very nice fishing career by stocking your Bass box with nothing but Buggers in different colors and sizes.

You see worse than this when you go to a public or neighborhood swimming pool.

Since you said Mice and muddlers (i.e-larger flies) then this could very well apply to what's happening to you.

 

Alot of times browns will make a mock charge at a larger fly. They see it as an intruder and even though they are not interested in eating it, they will sometimes make a charge and slash at it simply to scare it out of it's "zone". Happens alot to me when fishing big streamers. Could be whats happening to you.

 

Steve

Ditto. If I had a dollar for every trout that's merely slapped at my streamer or lure (complete with 2 treble hooks), I'd be able to afford a brand new top-of-the-line Sage rod.

It's frustrating as hell, but that just comes with the turf. Unfortunately, that's the best way to consistently catch monster Trout (realizing there are exceptions to every rule). With trout, it seems like no matter what you do you'll either catch them or you won't. My hookup rate is no better with jerkbaits (2 treble hooks) than it is with streamers, so I'd wager that a Stinger hook won't help you out either.

Here's a quiz for you hot shots who think you know a lot about fishing! Let's see if you all can guess the right answers.

Aah, so a garpike is just a longnose gar. They're more popularly called "gar" or "those damn things that eat all the crappie" in my neck of the woods.

 

 

* Work the downwind shore. It is often harder to fly fish due to wind, but baitfish are significantly affected by winds, which push them onto the downwind shoreline. Predators follow baitfish. This is a tip picked up from the saltwater guys and it has worked wonders for me.

 

 

Actually (I heard this somewhere and it completely makes sense to me) its not the baitfish that get pushed, its the plankton and stuff that minnows and shad feed on that gets pushed by the wind. The baitfish follow their prey, and the bass follow the baitfish.

After all, minnows and shad and the like are mobile and can move around easily. A little wind isn't going to push a shad around. It can swim a lot faster than the wind can push the water. If they can live in river and stream current all their lives, they can fight the wind no problem. The plankton and the food that baitfish eat, though, is completely at the mercy of the wind.

I've never fished Lake of the Woods, but I have fished up in Michigan's UP which is chock full of Pike and Bass.

Anything that looks like a fish will work. Bring an 8wt and a bunch of streamers, poppers, and sliders that are between 3" and 5" long and you'll pull double duty for Pike and Bass all day. If you're lucky you might end up tangling with a Muskie or a Walleye. If you want to target a monster Pike or Muskie, bring a 10wt and some giant footlong streamers.

Pike aren't picky so specific pattern probably won't be too critical. If I were you I'd bring some of the following: Clousers, Deceivers, Bucktail style streamers, EP fiber flies, Zonkers, and Bugger style flies, etc... Typical bass streamers will work just fine.

As for colors, Perch and Firetiger are killer up in the UP and I have no reason to suspect that shouldn't be the case at Lake of the Woods. I'd bring some natural shad colors too just in case.

And don't forget the bite guard. It would suck if you hook into a good Pike and its teeth break you off.

Yeah the copper job is a bit crappy, tied it in a bit of a hurry before leaving for work. The thread job on some of the heads, well, never been great at making clean heads really.

Neither have I. As long as it isn't bulky and obnoxious and catches fish, I could care less.

Look fishy to me! I need to add the hare's ear to my arsenal. Your copper wrapping job on that Copper John looks better than anything I've been able to do so far!

Don't forget that stereotypical "warmwater" flies are killer for trout too. Buggers, clousers, deceivers, muddlers and all of their infinite variations. Where I fish, people even catch trout on 10" long streamers and sluggos while striper fishing.

This is a footlong rainbow in the jaws of this Brown:

One of these days I want to catch a trout on one of those gargantuan streamers just for the heck of it.

NICE! I've gotta start getting into some tube flies. Those things look too cool and too functional not to try. Especially for short-striking trout. :wallbash:

Those would work all year down in my neck of the woods. Nice ties!

I'm finishing up my Master's degree in Industrial Engineering in a few weeks. One of my classes is Cognitive Systems Engineering. Basically looking at systems and how all of its parts interact with each other and learn from previous experiences to achieve a goal and how the system modifies itself to stay in control and keep achieving that goal. It's that open ended really. So I took advantage of that for my project this semester.

I'm desiging a simple tool in Microsoft Excel to help novice anglers catch fish; type in variables like weather, water clarity, type of water and such and Excel will generate a list of effective techniques. I'm going to go into detail on the main variables, touch on many of the God knows how many more, and use some tools and techniques to map the never ending decision and evaluation process to help me with the tool.

Talking about fishing in Engineering School. Priceless. :yahoo:

To make it simple, I'll be focusing on Bass, Panfish, and Trout.

Correction; I was browsing through the article again the other day and it was 29".

A 29" BROOK TROUT!!

Its in the catch big fish article in this month's Field and Stream. Next time you're at the grocery, take a peek at it. The thing is massive.

This damn thing was caught in a lake in Canada somewhere and measured 27" long and had a 21" girth. :eek: They estimated the weight at between 15 and 17 pounds. It was catch and release and wasn't weighed so it doesn't count for any records.

It was the biggest damn Brookie I've EVER seen!

Conehead:

 

I'm interested in the complete kits to tie his Clouser's Minnows. Thought that would be a good way to go to be sure that I have everything needed.

 

Charlie

Here's everything you need for the original Clouser:

Streamer Hooks in whatever size you want

Bucktails in whatever colors you want

Dumbbell eyes (in the absolute smallest weight you can get away with)

Flashabou/krystal flash/angel hair/any other flashy material.

Directions: Tie on the eyes. Tie in a sparse clump of bucktail. Tie in some flash. Tie on the top clump of bucktail. Finish. Easy.

You don't need a kit. Heck, there are about 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different variations on the Clouser and they'll all catch fish. Just browse away and if something looks cool, use it. Super Hair. Unique Hair. Icelandic Sheep hair (streamer hair), Angel Hair, Lite Brite, Yak hair, EP fibers, any of the millions of other synthetic fibers. Play around with mixing different synthetics. Play around with mixing synthetics and naturals. Play around with maybe adding a marabou top wing for some extra movement. Get creative. In some areas (like clear slow water), the bucktail's stiff nature might not catch as much fish as something like Sheep Hair or some sorta synthetic, which will have much more movement than bucktail and give a much more translucent and realistic baitfish image.

Or if you want to tie up some big streamers for monsters (Bass of all types, Trout, Muskie, Pike, Billfish, Tuna, etc...) bucktail won't be near long enough. In which case you'd be better off with something like Yak hair or synthetics.

I consider the clouser to be more of a style of tying rather than a pattern. Like the Woolly Bugger or Deceiver. There are approximately 98,981,358,749 different effective variations on all three patterns.

Nice tie! Looks like it'll catch about anything that swims and eats fish.

Tie that on a small jighead (1/16 and thereabouts), suspend it about 7-15 feet underneath a bobber, head to Dale Hollow Lake (KY/TN border) during winter, and hold on. If you do that I see many 20"+ Smallmouth in your future.

I just saw that it was tied on a 1/0 hook. You'd need to tie it a bit smaller (about 1" long) for winter Smallie fishing.