Bad really bad is how it went. The trailer wheel came off on the way down to Beaver Lake and we were luckly enough to rent a 14’ bass tracker while down there for a week. The lake was a flood stage, which for Beaver is only maybe, 4 feet above normal. The problem was all the influx of muddy water from the flooding in the Midwest. Beautiful and pristine Beaver was turned into a mud pit. Post frontal condition damn near every day plus 10 inches of rain made for a pretty awful trip. A tornadic thunderstorm has us fearing for our lives too. It was karma for the awesome year before.
We, well I, caught fish. My father gave up and went with my mother to look at property in the area as they plan on retiring somewhere in the Ozark area. I had to chase the clear water and get on some little ones to catch anything. The green sunfish were biting well and were fun to target with bass lures too. It was like the pirate of dark water cartoon I watched when I was a kid. I had hide from the heavy wind and evil muddy water that was escalating day by day.
I also fished West Okoboji Iowa in the last week of august. I really couldn’t pattern the fish very well and felt like there was a pattern, but it was just out of reach. The wind was awful and I failed at targeting musky and pike at night.
I fished the Rapala DT-20s for the first time and it was a big producer. The ability to crank deep humps and saddles for bass, then throw a cast at an edge of a basin for walleye was really fun. The 1st cast on the edge of a saddle that was also an edge of a basin produced a giant walleye. I didn’t even know white bass were in Iowa but I caught loads of, I guess big ones, night fishing tops of humps on a full moon cycle. I say there were big because there were the same size as ones I have seen mounted at the local shops. I caught lots of largemouths but never really blew them up with a killer pattern. My father caught a couple smallies racing wiggle warts over a rock bar midday.
It was nowhere as good as my 3 day trip to Okoboji in July 08. Bad year in general.
