I waded and flyfished a new-to-me 1/2-mile section of a small river. Considering this river had basically dried up each of the past 2 summers, I was pleased to find any fish at all.
Now that is a river I would love to fish!!! Smallmouth on a fly rod are fantastic! Great pictures!
looks like fun to me
wish the smallies around here where that nice size, looks like a good time.
Mike
Excellent!
Mike, I’d say the river I was fishing isn’t much bigger than that stream/river that runs on the east side of Alton, up by you. What is that river (I saw it on Google Earth), and is there any fish in it? Looks big enough for something catchable?
Dave,
I believe your referring to the Floyd River which isn’t really good for fishing right now had a major manure run off problem about a year ago, from allot of the farms stemming from about Sioux City to Lemars continue further north. So I fish allot of the local pond here, Alton, Sandy Hollow, Mill Creek and Douma. Allot of good fishing in these areas. Just got back for Sandy Hollow and caught about a dozen Gills really good size. I know theres smallies in there but haven’t caught but a few small ones 
Mike
Wow! I have to admit I’d never heard of any of those parks/ponds…but they all look GREAT on Google Earth! 
Mike,
nice to see that the river has still some smallies in it. If it is the same river than I think (I think I recognize the area of your pics), then I should pay another visit this August. I Loved fishing it a couple of years ago and managed to get a couple of about 18" smallies one evening. There were plenty of small fish (what it is always good) but then the river dried up last two summers. So it is nice to see good size fish in the river again.
M
Have any of you fellow Iowans tried the Rock River or Big Sioux? I have caught small smallies out of the Rock from time to time. Down here the Sioux holds smallies but I don’t know how far north they go. And of course there is the Missouri which has good smallmouth fishing especially north of Sioux City.
Cycler68, I have not tried either of those rivers. I didn’t even know Iowa had a Rock River! I lived in northern Illinois for a time, and there is a Rock River there that definitely has a good population of Smallies.
Malevo, You may have seen these pics on Chad’s Iowa Fly Fishers site, I listed the name of the river there. Yes, I think you know this river well. 18-inchers? Those would be HUGE from this river! About 3-4 years ago (before the drought summers), there was a feedlot manure pond spill into the upper reaches of this river which resulted in an extensive fish kill. The DNR said they found Smallies as large as 20" there, which really surprised me.
FishnDave wrote
“Cycler68, I have not tried either of those rivers. I didn’t even know Iowa had a Rock River!”
You’ll have to come up to northwestern Iowa sometime and check things out. We do have more than corn, beans, cattle and hogs up here. We even have a fly fishing club here in Sioux City. The url is http://www.siouxlandflyfishing.com/
Hey
cycler68,
Been fly fishing here in NW., IA for about 4-5yrs now and only seen maybe 3 other people fly fishing. Glad to see we do have a few others around.
Mike
There are more folks trying flyfishing here in central Iowa. Just in the past week I’ve seen other folks flyfishing the local public ponds…and yesterday on my way home from work, I was driving up the street I live on, and passed 3 kids with fishing gear in their front yard…one had a fly rod! And they don’t even know me (yet)!
I thought that was pretty cool!
When I grew up in Remsen, Iowa my dad ,who was not a fly fisherman, wanted me to be exposed to fly fishing. I was quite young then. He bought me a South Bend bamboo fly rod with the reel and line and handed it to me with nary a word of instruction. Having fished long bamboo poles and some sort of bait casters I rigged up with a pear shaped weight and hook with a worm on it… and knowing that you threw the line backwards then forwards I proceeded to do that …the first time the weight hit me in the back of the head as did the second and third time. With that I folded things up went home never to think about fly fishing till moving here the the Great Northwest.
I doubt that the fishing was as good then around there as it sounds like it is now.