"Ahquabi is an older lake, and kind of got a bad reputation in the early '90s for stunted bluegills and bass, so a lot of guys gave up on it," he said. "We renovated it in the late '90s, drew it down, added a lot of shoreline structure, and it's got a nice population of bass in it now."

Pressure from catch-'em-and-keep-'em anglers crops off Ahquabi's bass population as soon as they reach the legal "keeper limit" of 18 inches, but there are plenty of sublegal largemouths left.

"It's a fun lake to fish," said Kuehl. "A lot of times, you can go down there with a Texas-rigged worm or spinner bait and catch bass on almost every cast in places. You'll get a lot of ''pounders' -- not real big, but feisty, and fun to catch. It's a good lake to take kids fishing, to introduce them to bass fishing, because there's a good chance they'll see a lot of action."

The north side of the shallower northeast arm has a number of south-facing fishing jetties that attract largemouths on sunny spring days. At midlake, felled trees and brushpiles along the west shoreline make good midsummer targets for bass hunters.

HOOPER LAKE
McWilliams also suggested that anglers at Ahquabi consider fishing Hooper Lake, a 60-acre silt pond in the watershed above Ahquabi. Hooper doesn't have the visible habitat of Ahquabi, but has a summer weedline, a maximum depth of 24 feet, and has been producing nice 1- to 6-pound bass in recent years.

Hooper Lake is across Pershing Road, due south of Ahquabi, with a boat ramp on its northeast corner.

BADGER CREEK LAKE
Gary Sobotka, the fisheries biologist who manages Badger Creek Lake, was initially hesitant to recommend the lake. "It isn't as good as it used to be," he observed, "but that doesn't mean it can't be a really good place to fish for bass -- it's just not 'great' like guys were used to a couple years ago."

Badger Creek, 13 miles west of Des Moines' city limits and a few miles south of Highway F90 between Booneville and Van Meter, is a good place for diligent anglers.

"There's a good population of bass in there, some of them up in the 6- to 7-pound range," said Sobotka. "The problem is that the lake can get really muddy, and muddy water means tough fishing. The guys who do well for bass at Badger Creek are the guys who are willing to work a little for them."

Kuehl, the West Des Moines tournament angler, recommended fishing Badger Creek either shallow or deep. "Don't waste a lot of time fishing the middepths," he said. "Shallow fish get a lot of pressure, because people think you have to fish a muddy lake shallow. Actually, there are a lot of unpressured bass at Badger Creek in 6 to 12 feet of water. I like to fish the deep water off the dam, and there's some deep water off the main point where the lake turns back to the west."

Badger Creek is also a great place to use a technique that Kuehl rarely gets to use. "We can't troll in tournaments, so I don't do it very often, even when I'm pre-fishing or fishing for fun," he said. "But that big flat on the east side of the lake, north of the east boat ramp, is a prime place to troll. There are old fencelines and trees and stumps scattered in that area. Trolling a crankbait would be a great way to cover that big area and find those scattered fish."