IDNR surveys at Big Creek Lake, northwest of Des Moines, have turned up walleyes weighing more than 11 pounds. Photo by Mike Bleech.

It's interesting to see the reaction that you get if you talk about fishing for walleyes at Big Creek Lake in northern Polk County. Many anglers shake their heads and mutter, "Lots of walleyes . . . if you like small walleyes."

But a few tight-lipped walleye experts quietly slide their boats in and out of Big Creek, doing their best not to attract any attention. Ben Dodd, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist who manages the lake's fisheries, reported that his annual surveys parallel the few stories he's been able to pry from those local sages.

"We've seen walleyes up to 11 pounds in our surveys at Big Creek," said Dodd, "and there are a few guys who catch those big ones. They're pretty tight-lipped, but from what I've been able to get out of them, they're not fishing in the usual walleye places, and they're not using traditional walleye jigs and minnows."

Urbandale taxidermist and guide Lawayne Luers concedes that he regularly encounters larger-than-legal walleyes at Big Creek. "My personal best so far was a 9-pound, 28-incher that we caught and released," he said. "There are plenty of legal ones in there, but the trick is to find them and catch their interest."

SO MANY -- SO SMALL?
With most interested parties in agreement that Big Creek has a large population of walleyes of varying sizes, the obvious question is: Why has the majority of the walleye population stayed just below legal limits for so many years?

Dodd is nearing the end of a three-year research project designed to answer that very question. "We've been gill-netting in the spring to monitor age and growth of walleyes and muskies in Big Creek," he said. "We see a lot of 11- to 14-inch walleyes in our nets, but not a lot of 15- to 17-inchers. We always see some real pigs in our nets, up in the 9- to 11-pound range, but the majority of walleyes at Big Creek are sub-legal."

In Luers' view, the phenomenal crappie fishing enjoyed at Big Creek in recent years is a factor in keeping more walleyes from achieving lunker distinction. "I think that at a certain size, walleyes and crappies compete for the same food base," he observed. "And there is a huge -- almost unbelievable -- population of crappies in Big Creek right now. If anglers really work on the crappies, or if Mother Nature does something to maybe mellow the crappie population just a little, we might see an explosion of nice walleyes in there."

"QUALITY TIME" COUNTS
Luers is quick to note that plenty of "nice" walleyes already swim Big Creek -- it just takes a little patience and experience to find them.

"If," he said, "you go out to Big Creek in the summertime and fish a couple hours before dark -- zip around the lake and fish a half-dozen spots for 15 minutes each and are loading up as the sun sets -- you're not going to catch the big ones. You don't have to spend hours and hours out there, but you've got to spend quality time -- fishing the right places at the right times in the right ways."