I finally decided to try Coralville for walleyes. We knew the fish had recovered from spawning and wanted to give it a shot. There are a ton of eyes in this reservoir but it seems that no one fishes for them or can come up w/ a consistent pattern. I noted the way that other staffers fish reservoirs and put together a plan. We were not disappointed. Here’s the biggest one of the day, a 25"er – of course caught by Trevor. This one was released and we didn’t have camera so I used my camera phone. Not TOO bad…
We had a strong east (fish bite the least) wind so we trolled an area where the wind was blowing over the channel into a gradual flat w/ some structure. 7 – 12 fow was the ticket this day and #7 shad raps, grappler shads, and even lipless frenzies accounted for a fish or two. bright colors worked. so did blue and chrome. Here’s my 2nd place 21" eye!
The key today was speed. We only got bit when we were in the 3 – 3.3 mph range. This held true for the largemouth, white bass, and crappies we caught as well. We ended up w/ 6 nice eyes from 18" – 25", several white bass, a few crappies, and a channel cat. It was nice to have some other fish around to keep us busy. Here’s a couple more 18-20" fish i took home w/ me.
Andy you are the second coming of Houdini.
Did you stick those fish on the Miss and magically have them appear in the Res? 
Muwhahaha. 
That is the most amazing appearing act I have ever seen. I am amazed that you intentionally went for Walter on the Res and were successful, great job I didn’t think it could be done! That isn’t to speak negatively to your angling skills which from your posts I hold in very high regard. It speaks to my contempt of that body of water. And I would challenge our experts from surrounding states to come to that body of water and put together a better stringer. Sad as it is, 
that’s the best batch of fish I have ever heard of coming from the Res. There are always the 1 off’s where someone sticks a single 8 pounder but never a solid group of walleye like those you got. 
Nice report and nice work, very impressed to say the least. 
Nice report and fish I fished it a few years back in a tourny and would have loved to have seen them fish
Looks like a fun day on the water Andy. Good report without letting out all the secrets
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To tell you guys the truth I was surprised too. We started out fishing for crappies but it was so windy – I thought we better try some trolling and it just worked out. The wind was really blowing and the shad really balled up in the area we fished… and the eyes were in there eating them! I don’t expect to be able to do it time after time but there are a lot of nice fish in there.
Nice job Andy!
Good job Andy. I’ve fished Coralville many times and have caught walleye when searching for crappies. Usually off of the little cove points in the lower half of the lake. One day we ended up with more walleye than crappie but never really found a pattern for the walleye. The walleye club held a tournament on Coralville one year (I did not fish it) and very few fish made it to the weigh-in. I don’t know of anyone who has consistantly caught walleye out of Coralville so my hat is off to you if you have established a pattern. I have also caught walleye out of McBride probably more consistantly than out of Coralville. I know that McBride holds some real piggy walleyes and I imagine that Coralville has a few brutes as well.
Eyehunter
Way to go Andy!
Way to go Andy! A few years back i talked to a guy who was pulling in his nets that he was useing fishing for rough fish. I asked him if he was getting any walleyes in the nets and this is what he told me. He said everytime he pulled his nets up which was every couple days he had atleast one walleyes in each net, very few nets were without atleast one walleye. He said they got one in one net that was so big they had to weigh it, it weighed close to a new state record, at 14 pounds something. I asked him where he got the most walleyes at and in what part of the river and reservoiur and he said that it didn’t matter, they all held about the same amount, so they are everywhere and all the way to the Amanas. There are alot of walleyes, not just a decent population in the reserviour. Its a hard system to figure out. The best system i can come up with is fish shelves or flats next to deeper water later in the afternoon, i’ve gotton some that way. One thing for sure is trolling the reserviour is a good way to cover more areas. A guy might try bouncing jigs down the shelf sides that end up on the bottom of a shallow shelf, if there were any sizable rocks or stumps around this would be a great area. I talked to an older guy years back that use to fish walleyes at McBride and he jigged and threw lures at the upper end of the lake around stumps and rocks for the wallleyes he got and that would probably work in the reserviour too, especially after the shad break up out of thier huge schools a little later. Good luck to those who are going to try,,,
Dont eat anything out of the Iowa River as its considered the most polluted river right now. Hope your stomachs arent hurting.. Great job on catching those nice walleyes.
FYI, that #3 “threatened” listing of the iowa river was dubbed by American Rivers – a special interest group that does a lot of things based on opinions and not science. kinda like Al Gore. I’m not saying the Iowa is clean by any means but how the hell can you rank the thousands of rivers in this country? Did they actually put all the rivers and streams in the US through the same series of guidelines? I seriously doubt it… Our stomachs are fine!!
where guys fishing north or south of mehaffey bridge??
Andy – we need to fish from a canoe together again – same place as last time but with cooler conditions this year… and hopefully better results… Chuckles
I think Travis was right. The Iowa river fish are horrible, you should release every walleye. We should make some signs and hang them up below the tube and burlington street, lol.
Now I like that idea dave… because they’re so full of mercury and pcb’s, right.
if you don’t eat em for every meal you’ll live for a while
I’ve always been curious of the two impoundments south of Waterloo, do they get stocked in these resivour or is it just eyes from the river?
Nice lookin’ eyes Andy
Trolling is a blast when there are other fish biting as well
When you start to have a glow in the dark look, then its time to lay off the filet’s for awhile
