Angler response to the trout stocked in Davenport’s Lake of the Hills was, in the words of Don Kline, IDNR fisheries biologist, “great.” He continued: “We initially planned to stock them in open water in November, through the ice in midwinter and again just after ice-out in the spring, to provide late fall, winter and early spring trout fishing opportunities. But last year was so open that we ended up stocking them into open water all three times.”

The hatchery-raised trout were extremely “angler-friendly,” according to Kline. “They caught them on just about anything that was small enough to get in the trout’s mouths,” he said, chuckling. “There were guys fly-casting when the lakes weren’t frozen, and they caught fish. Other guys used commercial trout bait, salmon eggs, even kernels of sweet corn. They were easy to catch, and people had a lot of fun.”

Kline said that in the days following stocking, the trout clustered close to the boat ramp where they were released. They eventually dispersed into the lake, but Kline noted that they were easily patterned.

“(Trout) tend to move around the perimeter of the lake,” said Kline. “Inside corners, like where a fishing jetty meets the bank, seem to be a choke point that concentrates them. The secret to catching them seems to be to focus on those choke points, but be mobile. If you don’t catch them from one spot, you can either move till you find them, or just sit there and wait for them to move back into that area.”

Kline said the average size of the trout stocked in the urban lakes and ponds is around 10 to 12 inches. A few brood trout added to each stocking add spice to each lake’s potential.

URBAN ICE-ANGLINGOPPORTUNITIES If threatening weather or the shortened days of midwinter deters metropolitan anglers from undertaking a road trip to find fish, there are plenty of nearby waters that are good places to drill a hole and drown a wax worm.

Lake Ahquabi, south of Indianola, holds a strong population of bluegills in the 8- to 9-inch range. The lake was renovated nearly a decade ago, with shoreline improvements and brushpiles added. Ice anglers traditionally do well probing the deepest parts of the lake off the face of the dam for bluegills.

Lake Ahquabi also offers ice-anglers a unique “fish house.” The structure, built over brushpiles placed in deeper water and accessible from shore, provides a focal point of holes drilled in midwinter.

Anglers who explore Lake Ahquabi should also consider poking a few holes in Hooper Pond Lake, a large silt retention pond southwest of Lake Ahquabi. Hooper Pond Lake has the depth to support a year-round fishery, and offers all the fishing opportunities provided by Lake Ahquabi, on a smaller scale.

While the Ahquabi/Hooper complex offers good bluegill potential, Easter Lake, on the southeast corner of Des Moines’ city limits, is more of a crappie lake. Anglers pulled consistent catches of 9-inch crappies from Easter Lake during 2007’s warm weather. There’s good reason to expect similar catches this winter.

Look for Easter Lake’s crappies off the face of the dam and near deep-water brushpiles. Here, as at any other metro-area lake offering worthwhile ice-fishing, finding fish is often merely a matter of noting where the most holes are drilled in the ice, and adding your fresh ice hole to the collection if the others have all refrozen.