Jan. 5th- Rock Creek Revival



Brian with a keeper crappie off the ledge.



Rock Creek Lake is located about 20 miles south of Marshalltown, making it a lake I frequent in the winter time.  It is a large lake...for Iowa anyway, being over 400 acres.  This allows me and friends to run our snowmobiles all over the lake chasing bluegills and crappies. 

David Bowles and Brian Bowles joined me on this day to do that very ting, chase down some panfish.  I really missed Rock Creek Lake, as the ice never made it safe to ice fish last year, so I was counting down the days when i could once again fly down the lake to my next GPS way point.



We started off fishing a brushpile in about 8 feet of water, and quickly we caught a couple bluegills. A few minutes later, off to another brushpile, this time a bit deeper in 12 feet of water.  Here we did much better, putting about 25 bluegills on the ice, a few in the 7-9 inch range.  The action cooled off quickly, so it was time to try something different.



At Rock Creek Lake, you either fish brushpiles, the old channel, or the drop-off ledges.  I quickly turned the snowmobile towards my favorite ledge and we were there in no time.  Well, so was someone else, so off to ledge #2.  We quickly drilled 20-30 holes and started fishing, catching some nice bluegills and a few crappies mixed in too.  While we were doing this, the person that was near my first choice packed up and left.  Once again, the action cooled off, and we were on my first ledge in a few minutes.


A portion of the "take-home" prize



This is where a good day of ice fishing turned into one we won't forget for a long time, for the next 2+ hours we pulled countless fish through the ice.  Big school of bluegills and crappies would swim under us and we would pick them off as fast as you could.  The schools would move a little, and so would we.  It was amazing to see the Vexilar work as well as it did.  Finding the school of fish was easy, and then it was all about the catching.  My friends took home 45 keepers that day, about half bluegills and half crappies, and Brian even scored a nice walleye to take home.  We threw back at least three times that many fish to swim another day.  The long wait of ice fishing at Rock Creek was over, and it was nothing less than a fantastic trip.