“Walleyes aren’t a sure thing through the ice at Clear Lake, but they’re always a possibility,” said Grummer. “If you find them, you can have a really great day. If not, there’s always yellow bass.”

Yellow bass are nearly a year-round mainstay at Clear Lake. According to Grummer, two year-classes of yellow bass swimming the lake are drawing the interest of ice anglers this winter. A phenomenal year-class that has provided excellent angling for several years is waning. The remnants provide large individual yellow bass, though numbers are declining.

A second year-class that was “nuisance-sized” last spring and summer gained enough size through the summer and fall to begin to earn keeper status with yellow bass aficionados.

“That second year class should be up around 7 1/2 inches this winter,” said Grummer. “That’s getting to a size where guys are willing to clean them, because they are really good eating, even if they’re a bit small.”

Deeper, muck-bottomed areas near “the Island” on the south shore of Clear Lake, along with deeper mud-bottomed areas from the island westward to Dodge’s Point, are favorite haunts of yellow bass and ice anglers who seek them.

GO WEST, YOUNG MAN —FOR GOOD FISHING
Interstate 80 westbound from Des Moines is the quickest route to a milk run of small lakes that traditionally provide good midwinter angling possibilities. An hour’s drive west to the state Route 25 exit leads anglers to Meadow Lake, Lake Greenfield and several other opportunities in Adair County.

“They’re probably better for bluegills than crappies, but there are nice crappies in all those lakes in Adair County,” said Darcy Cashatt, IDNR fisheries biologist. Cashatt pointed specifically to Lake Greenfield, Mormon Trail Lake and Meadow Lake for their bluegill potential. IDNR surveys showed good populations of 8- to 9-inch bluegills, with scattered “humpbacks” that exceeded 9 inches.

“From what I’ve seen and heard, Meadow (Lake) has the largest bluegills and (Lake) Greenfield has the best numbers,” said Cashatt. “At Meadow you can see brushpiles sticking out of the ice, and the deepwater areas beside those brushpiles would be good places to drill holes.”

None of the Adair County lakes are larger than 100 acres, making them easy to cover in a day’s ice-fishing. Local anglers stay on top of where the bluegills are biting; visitors need only look for ice honeycombed with holes drilled by other anglers to find the best place to dangle a wax worm.

SOUTHERN OPTIONS If Mother Nature smacks us with solid cold spell and our southern Iowa lakes freeze early and deep, West Lake Osceola is worth the short hour’s drive south of Des Moines on I-35. Visible on the west side of the interstate and marked by the huge neon sign advertising the gambling casino on its north shore, West Lake Osceola is one of Iowa’s most consistent summertime lakes for bass, bluegills and crappies.

Good fishing in the summer usually translates into good fishing in the winter. Ice anglers at “West Lake” can expect to find success if they drill holes over the submerged dam and basin of a pre-existing farm pond in the arm of the lake west of the dam. A ring of deadfall trees and an old shoreline and ledge mark the former perimeter of the lake. The lake’s normal pool depth was increased more than a decade ago, and the submerged trees and dropoffs along that old shoreline near deepwater areas often are productive.

Another option south of Des Moines isn’t technically adjacent to either I-80 or I-35 but is worth an ice-fishing effort. The south lake at Banner Lakes at Summerset State Park, between Des Moines and Indianola along U.S. Route 69, is stocked with trout each fall, winter and spring to provide a put-and-take trout fishery in an area where trout otherwise are never found.

The IDNR for many years stocked trout each fall at Blue Pit, Heritage Pond and North Prairie Lake in northeastern and north-central Iowa. Anglers enjoyed the opportunities, so the IDNR expanded its put-and-take trout stocking program to include not only Banner Lakes south of Des Moines but also East and West lakes in Big Lake Park and Lake Sauganash in Council Bluffs, Bacon Creek Lake near Sioux City and Lake of the Hills in West Lake Park in Davenport.