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Definitely not for the faint of heart, but so beautiful in its own way.
In the minority on this, but I LOVE the Midwest in winter.....
- Thread starter torbee
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I probably spend more time outside in the winter than the summer. Nothing beats a winter walk in the woods with the snow crunching under foot and the only sound is the wind at the top of the pines.
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My favorite time of year to trout fish. No bugs, no poison ivy and underbrush, no competing anglers (usually), and the fish are HUNGRY!
If it's a weekend and it's above 32 degrees, I'm going.
Same here. Rain kept me away last weekend from heading up to NE Iowa, but looking forward to many trips up there this winter. I’m part of a canoe group and we always push the weather by going in early November and late March for a trip down a NE Iowa river. No bugs and no other people. Sand bars to ourselves.
I love the seasons. It is amazing to me how much warmer it is living in Kansas City than back home in NW Iowa during winter. Consistently 10-20 degrees warmer with much less wind and snow. I'm usually still in shorts and a sweatshirt around here if it's above freezing with no snow on the ground. I love a crisp morning.
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This week is pissing me off. The past two days have been PERFECT trouting weather, but for some reason people expect a damn newspaper EVERY DAY!
I prefer a north Florida winter to a north Florida summer. Too dadgum hot. Now, I don’t know how I would do long term in a Midwest winter.
Is that the Upside Down?......Definitely not for the faint of heart, but so beautiful in its own way.
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Great pic. Also, the best part of winter is the killing of all of the bugs.Definitely not for the faint of heart, but so beautiful in its own way.
There is absolutely nothing like the vitality of a trout stream on a cold winter’s day, with trout sunning themselves in gin-clear water, rising to take midges and hopefully a #22 Griffith’s Gnat. Even the stocker rainbows have become feral, more colorful than before, and with the musculature to put a memorable bend in a long rod that no fish could do unless it had long since forgotten the raceways of the hatchery. The buzzing activity of life on the winter spring creek is such a stark contrast to the nearby winter woods, which have fallen so dormant that you must remind yourself they are not in fact dead.
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You're never too old to start.
Maybe I should start a "Torbee Trouting in Iowa for Beginning Anglers" course.
It is ok until late Jan and all of Feb and most of March...it sucks ballz those months.
What rivers? Do you ever canoe the Turkey? I love the trip from Elkader to the Motor Mill.
I am happy to provide many alcoholic beverages for such an occasion.
Swing by DSM for one and my son will and I will do it.
Definitely not for the faint of heart, but so beautiful in its own way.
Agreed. But let's be honest, Spring in Iowa sucks. It can't decide whether to be Summer or Winter during March and April, it's slushy, wet, and muddy constantly, and then all of a sudden it decides to be Summer and its 90 degrees every.
To be fair I should point out that I've always grown up in places that get lake effect snow. So I see a lot more snow than you guys do. For reference I asked google about average snowfall in Des Moines and Iowa City. Des Moines comes in at 33 inches per year, Iowa City at 27 inches per year. South Bend comes in at 63 inches per year.
But I hate winter.
I have wondered how I would like it if I lived in a place that was just as cold but saw less snowfall.
But I hate winter.
I have wondered how I would like it if I lived in a place that was just as cold but saw less snowfall.
February is the worst of all months. January you still have awesome bowls and you aren't quite yet sick of shoveling snow, and the snow is mostly still clean and bright. February is cold, dark, cold, dark, dirty, and cold. It is like every day is Tuesday for 28 days. And cold. And dark.
Coming from the Midwest, I would have to say I experienced some of my coldest winters during the 3 years I lived in Tallahassee. The temperature wasn't super cold, maybe in the 20's at night, but there was a lot of bone chilling moisture that came off the Gulf.
The coldest I have experienced was the Polar Vortex outbreak in Chicago this past winter with -25 temperatures and wind chills in the -50s.
I lived in Grand Rapids, MI for three years back in the 90's. Lake effect snow is legit. We had just over 100 inches one of the winters I was there, never seen anything like it. It doesn't slow anyone down either.
This is true, but those temps typically only last a couple of days before you get a reprieve.
I spent a week in Arkansas this summer looking at bugs so big they might carry off one of my children and eat them. There is something to be said for a hard freeze.
Have you experienced -20s vs 20s? Stating the obvious but 80 is to 120 as 20 is to -20. It is a literally breathtaking difference in temperature. A few days will last you awhile and/or cause pipes to burst, like they did in my basement.
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You will have to come to us. The only trout streams are in the northeast corner of the state.
Do you clean/eat them or is it just for sport?You will have to come to us. The only trout streams are in the northeast corner of the state.
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I will admit February sucks balls. However, it IS the shortest month!
We’ve done that stretch a few times. Love the Turkey.
We’ve paddled every eastern Iowa river from mouth or entrance to the state to the Mississippi. My favorites: Yellow (mostly for the fishing), North Fork of Maquoketa, Turkey, Volga, and the Maquoketa proper. The beauty about the Maquoketa is that it’s only an hour from Iowa City and maintains a stunner throughout. Also great sand bars and natural areas to check out. The Upper Iowa gets the publicity, but give me the Maquoketa any day.
Oh and Whitewater Canyon. Depends on the flow, but damn. Nothing like it in Iowa.
Least favorites: Iowa, Cedar (has its moments) and the Wapsi. Just too much adjacent Ag land. Very dirty rivers.
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90 percent of the time I catch-and-release. I usually keep a few a couple times a year to cook. I don't keep the native brown trout, but the stocked rainbows are literally raised to be eaten, and are pretty tasty. I'm just lazy about cleaning them, so usually let them go, lol.
I might have to look into this. My son love to fish but he's spoiled with all of the ponds in Ankeny stocked with bass. What you and others describe here though sounds amazing.
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That cold marine air is no joke.
The coldest game I went to in 2009 - and I was in Madison, Wisconsin for a game in late November - was the freaking Orange Bowl in Miami. It was around 40 degrees (which around here is shorts and hoodie weather) but just a solid mist and a wet ocean breeze and I froze my ASS off.
I do the same thing. I usually get my limit pretty quick and in the end I spend way more time driving than fishing. Sometimes I will bend in the barbs on a rooster talk and just go catch and release.
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I like it because you have to walk and work at it. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy sitting in a boat or on a bucket drinking beers and plunking for bass and panfish or walleye. But having to walk a creek, look for pools, make just the right cast and engage your brain AND your body is what makes stream trout fishing so amazing.
And the fact you sometimes get pretty big damn fish out of tiny, tiny creeks is a hoot, too. I had a brown trout on a few weeks ago that I am guessing had to be pushing 20-25 inches out of a creek about as wide as my office. It's nuts. Bastard got away though.
Outside of Dec 20th-ish through Dec 27th-ish...I freaking hate winter in the Upper Midwest.
Give me 6-8 inches of snow a few days before Christmas and then it can melt a couple days after Christmas. Other than that, I want 50s and 60s through the winter.
Give me 6-8 inches of snow a few days before Christmas and then it can melt a couple days after Christmas. Other than that, I want 50s and 60s through the winter.
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