Iowa City Report

I got out on a couple ponds in Johnson County yesterday and today. Yesterday’s pond had about 4″ of good clear ice on it–that pond was mostly frozen over last Sunday. True to my experience with it in the past, I caught lots of small skinny bluegill, and nothing else.

Today I hit a pond that was still open last weekend. It had about 3.5″ of good hard clear ice. I caught a few nice crappies, a couple of good-sized bluegills mixed in with the smaller ones, and two largemouth. I’ll be on that one again tomorrow morning.

I plan on fishing the Iowa City-area hard water at a brisk pace this weekend. If the one and two-week weather forecasts are close to being right, the three and four inches of good ice on ponds in SE Iowa won’t be safe for very long.

First ice (all two or three days of it) is done in Johnson County. I got out Saturday morning on a local pond and found hard clear ice with no dark patches, soft spots, or spider-webbing at all. I caught some more bluegill, although the bite was slower than Friday.

I knew the forecast called for a rapid warm-up Saturday, but there was still ice forming that morning, so I went out Saturday afternoon hoping to squeeze at least one more hardwater trip in. In only a few hours, the good 4″ of ice at 9:00 a.m. had turned to a soft and mushy cold bath waiting to happen. I made it twenty feet on to the ice, saw and heard the BAD kind of cracking and popping, and ordered my amateur fishing partner to “STAY ON SHORE!”. Then I skittered back to dry land. My record of no cold baths while ice-fishing remains intact (knocking on wood), but yesterday afternoon was a close one.

I have to say I did not think just a few hours of warm temps would rot the ice as quickly as it did. I expected the Saturday afternoon ice to still be good, and had not abandoned all hope for Sunday. Now it sounds like it will be (at least) two weeks before there is decent ice in southeast Iowa again.