Hello and Welcome to my home page. The purpose of this home page is to gather and share information on the fishing in the southeast corner of Iowa. I am Terry Clotfelter, and I just moved to Ottumwa Iowa. I live to fish. Being new to the area I am unaware of all the good fishing locations. So I put this web page together to get the scoop on all the hot spots.
I would appreciate all of your input and photos of your fishing adventures so I can share them with the rest of the web. Limits will not allow me to publish all info and photos but I will try to show as many as possible.
There are two big lakes in southeast Iowa, Red Rock Lake and Rathburn Lake, and several small lakes. The big lakes require a good boat because the wind effects the surface of the lake causing large waves and white caps. However a small fishing boat can be used in coves and the upper part of the lake. Most of the small lakes have a no wake law or only allow electric motors. But don't let that scare you off. Some of these lakes have very good fishing.
Lake Wapello for example, is a smaller lake. If you have a boat you can cover more of the lake. Most of the lakes in Iowa are like the lakes in Missouri, you can't just drive up and fish. They are located between hills or mountains. Which makes it almost impossible to get to unless you like to hike for many miles carrying your gear. If you're like me, you want to fish and not hike.
Okay folks, I have been out fishing. Lake Wapello is pretty good. Most of the people I ran into, said they were fishing for crappie. I like Big Bass myself. So any how I caught several small(little is 8" or smaller,small is 13" to 8", large is anything over 13". Of course 15" is keeper here in Iowa) bass. Lake Wapello is catch and release only on largemouth bass.
I also tried a little lake called Keomah State Park. I was really impressed. Only electric motors no gas engines. Pretty nice lake, not very big. However Large Mouth Bass like you wouldn't beleave. My wife and I went there today(May 28, 1999) and oh boy did I catch fish. I caught almost 20 14" to 16" bass just using a black spinner. If you had a good trolling motor and battery you could fish allday. We fished for almost 3 to 4 hours. Not much more.
Hey please email me and let me know how your trip was.
You can send your tips, photos and questions to [email protected]
Or you can email me your request for my snail mail address for those of you who don't have a digital camera or scanner.
This is my first web page (kind of plain) it will look cooler and have more info as time passes.
May 28, 1999