Maquoketa River Walleye

[jonesie59]

I was back home in Eastern Iowa the week before Easter and decided to try some Walleye fishing with my dad and a friend of his. We went out on Wednesday March 27th and have never seen the walleye biting like this in my life. We hit the water around 1pm and not expecting many people to be fishing, but there were at least 20 people on the water. As soon as we pulled in, we saw people pulling in fish left and right. We got the boat on the water and within 15 minutes, we were already on them. This is no joke, we saw at least 100-120 walleyes caught around us. Between us 3, we kept 11 and threw back at least 20. We didn't catch anything huge, but most were in the 16-18 inch range. We saw a few 3 pounders caught, but most people were throwing them back. We were just vertical jigging a dew worm on a chartreuse jig head. I've never seen anything like it. One of those times where you pick the right day to head out.

 

[AIRASSAULT]

Awesome! Was it around the pictured rocks area?

 

[jonesie59]

It was down at the Lakehurst Dam in Maquoketa. I have heard good things about the walleye bite above the dam (up towards Monticello) though. In years past, after a good flood down there, it seems to freshen things up a bit, as was the case last week.

Growing up, walleye fishing wasn't really that big there. Here in the last 7-10 years, it has gotten a lot of attention. We've pulled some 6-8 pounders out of there on a regular basis.

There were a lot of vehicles there from out of county (Clinton, Jones, Scott, Dubuque) so it is getting a lot of attention.