Fishing in brutal weather with only tent type shelter

STATE # 10 - IOWA

FEBRUARY 2018 - CLEAR LAKE

SPECIES CAUGHT - Walleye, Yellow Bass

Just a day removed from an awesome three days ice fishing in MN and after staying the night before in Mason City, IA, I met my Iowa ice fishing guide Ryan Schultz of Kevan Paul’s Guide Service at Kevan’s bait shop in the town of Clear Lake.

From there I followed Ryan to the nearby spring-fed natural Clear Lake and once again drove across a froze over lake. The powder snow on the surface was blowing around in the strong wind along with some still falling creating a blizzard.

He knew the path well to be able to follow it right to his spot which was a long way from the shore in a blinding blizzard. The temperature, not as low as what I left behind in MN, seemed worse in the high teens and low twenties with that wind.

I was about to be reintroduced to fishing in brutal weather with only a tent type shelter (memoirs of SD). No complaints here - this is what I signed on for and I had better boots this time. Minutes seemed like hours getting set up but once past that I was good.

After catching Walleye in several states this is where I caught on to the know-how of catching them without missing many of them. There was a minimum length of 15” with a release slot between 20 and 24” and could only keep one over 24.” So it took a while to get qualifiers for the keep limit of 3 before pulling up camp and moving to the other end of the lake. This was following our prescribed plan of limiting on Walleye then targeting Yellow Bass for the rest of the day.

There was not a limit on the Yellow Bass and the bite was pretty good early on after our move to the other side of this 3684 acre lake. After I got a few of them I asked Ryan how they tasted. He replied, to me they taste as good as the Walleye. So I decided we would stay there as long as they were biting okay. They were consistent enough for me to get 14 of them before quitting time on this day where the cold wind blew all day.

I stayed again in Mason City and ate a Walleye sandwich at the White Castle restaurant for dinner. That one is the only chain restaurant I have heard of that serves Walleye. It was starting to snow when I went in for the night. All the vehicles in the parking lot were covered with the thick snow so I cleaned off the snow, got breakfast and checked out. Once again Ryan and I were greeted by a blizzard before dawn and we started much earlier and in the dark with the plan of leaving early.

We had the same plan and a similar day but with quicker results. With possession limit of Walleye in hand and catching Yellow Bass pretty handy I decided to call it a day when the bite slowed or when I got to 40 (total) of the Yellow Bass. Just had to have one more and wound up with 41 of them total for both days. The wind and the fish bit from start to finish on this final day.

So I followed Ryan back to Kevan’s place where he filleted the fish for me in a room designed for it in the back of the store. I then packed them on snow and headed toward southern Missouri where I stayed on my way home.

Two ice chests full of MN fish and another with these fresh from the Hawkeye state capped off the two state trip perfectly.

I remember wondering about the Yellow Bass in regards to how they may taste and they were great. I fried the first batch of them before freezing and didn’t wait much longer on the rest. I assumed they would probably be like White Bass which are good if you don’t wait too long. Whatever my opinion is worth, the yellows are a little better than the whites. But neither one compares to Walleye.

Something else from my one man opinion poll is when I compared the taste of like species (Black Crappie and Bluegill) from glacial water to our warm water in the south, the ones from the cold water were a little better.

I suppose on extremely hot years in shallow water the heat breaks them down. I don’t know if I could tell which is which if only having one of them in the blind. Not much difference but some. These species are good wherever they come from.

I didn’t meet Kevan while there but his guide service was represented very well by Ryan Schultz. I have tried to emphasize my appreciation for the quality guides in my articles.

In this case the brutal weather and blinding blizzards would have left a stranger literally in the cold with little to no catch. It would have probably taken a week to find the fish on that lake. Thanks Ryan.

Kevan rents sleeper houses and offers fully guided trips and can usually be found at his bait and fishing supply shop on highway 18 E in Clear Lake.

He can also be found online at www.paulsfishingguide.com and on Facebook under Kevan Paul’s Guide Service. Lots of good eating was once again the result of another wonderful experience in Fishing America.