Cedar Valley Walleye Club Forum

Hey everyone. If you haven't kept up with the meetings or emails, the tournament board is requesting your suggestions for the 2025 calendar year.

While attempting to come up with my own suggestions, I wanted to gather more info about:

1. Where we have fished in the past few years.
2. What water bodies are nearby and available for tournament use.

This quickly spiraled out of control, so I apologize in advance.

Note: I am sharing this data only for awareness. Feel free to suggest any water body you desire, whether it is listed here or not!

Some comments about the data:

• Two thumbnails are shown below that cover the above topics. Additional information can be viewed by opening the link at the bottom of this post.
• IDNR Fish Survey Data is a reference point only. The number and quality of surveys is not shown here, so take it with a LARGE grain of salt.
• Several Iowa lakes are struck out, due to the listed boat restrictions. If you are confident any of these are in error, please let me know!
• You may notice I have several Wisconsin lakes listed. Many of these are the same (or less) distance from the CVWC than tournaments we host today.
• Pool 9 is our most heavily fished location over the past few years. I did not list all pools, but initial feedback was that all pools are fair game!

11/08/24: Moved Rathbun back to the list of available lakes (no longer struck out).
11/22/24: Added data from 2009-2020. Thanks to Al Dietz for collecting that information.
11/26/24: Changed highlighting for 2020 and noted Covid as the main reason for only 1 tournament.









Link to CVWC Tournament Data Spreadsheet

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, Jordan Tagtow

Hey Jordan, very impressive post, thanks for your data gathering! I believe we should be looking at locations and dates that provide the most participation and a historically good bite at that time of year. Our river participation has been down lately, not sure why? I would suggest an early April event on Pool 9,10,11 or 13. A late April event at Clear Lake, a mid-May event at Storm or Black Hawk Lake, early June event on pool 4. In the past we have had good participation at Rathbun even though the bite wasn't all that good. I think the Iowa great lakes, maybe Spirit in the fall? if no conflicts with any other nearby tournaments going on at the same time and wrap up the season on the river. The earlier the better for scheduling. I'm certainly not opposed to any new dates or locations. The 2025 N.T.C. is June 19th-21 at Lake Francis Case, Pickstown South Dakota. Thanks for everyone's efforts!

tahrens wrote: ↑November 8th, 2024, 9:53 am Hey Jordan, very impressive post, thanks for your data gathering! I believe we should be looking at locations and dates that provide the most participation and a historically good bite at that time of year.

Thanks Tim. I couldn't agree more!

tahrens wrote: ↑November 8th, 2024, 9:53 am In the past we have had good participation at Rathbun even though the bite wasn't all that good.

I updated the sheet to take Rathbun off of the "naughty list". Actually, the only reason I originally struck it was due to some negative feedback I had heard from others. I've never fished it, but it's a beautiful lake and I'd love to take a crack at it.

Added data from 2009-2020. Thanks Al!

Jordan,
2020 was the Covid year. We only held the two-day Lansing tournament that year. All others were cancelled.

My suggestions (and rationale) for 2025 locations are listed below. Hear me out, I know some of these might not be popular.

Okoboji

• Weather conditions were tough this year, as I believe was the case in prior years. We had a 1 hour bite window that really put a damper on things.
• The fish were there, they just weren't eating. Lots of baitfish as well, so a different time of year may be more fruitful.
• The weekend before the tournament, I put together a 20+ lb bag on Saturday and a nearly 25 lb bag in 3 hours on Sunday - fishing solo.

Storm Lake

• For anyone that fished Storm Lake this year, I think this is a no-brainer. The bite was hot both in pre-fishing, as well as the day-of.
• Two bags well into the 20+ lb range and one bag over 30 lbs. Phenomenal for a lake that size.

Clear Lake

• Numbers. Clear lake draws a crowd, and for it's depth, is a rather interesting fishery. (26 teams attended our 2024 event)
• We won the Clear Lake Fall Classic, so naturally I need to defend some sort of fictional "title" here

Mississippi River Pool 8, 12, or 13

• Variety is the spice of life. I enjoy fishing and learning new water.
• Rivers are often a safe bet in the April timeframe, given the randomness of ice-out.

Wisconsin Lake - Petenwell? Mendota? Monona?

• A bit of a surprise to me, but these lakes are a similar distance to others we have fished in Iowa (Okoboji, Rathbun, etc)
• The information I was able to find on these fisheries was good. I also heard from several members that Petenwell was fun to fish.
• Obvious downside is the need to purchase a WI fishing license, but we purchased MN licenses this year for Pool 4 and Pool 9, so maybe not an issue.

New Iowa Lake - Black Hawk? Red Rock? Rathbun?

• Again, variety.
• If you assume DNR records are an accurate representation of a fishery, these lakes all look promising.
• It's my opinion that we should attempt to cycle one new lake in every year.

Anyways, just my suggestions for 2025, if it isn't already too late to suggest them. I look forward to fishing with everyone, regardless of what water bodies are chosen. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thanks Jordan,
Very nice work-up on all the info posted. You will most likely receive some positive & negative comments which is needed to get the best results. As a new member of this club don't let any of the comments slow you down. We need new ideas, and we are needing new leaders in all areas.
Being a member over 20 yrs i can say your presentation of this history is the best we have seen presented.

In the past the tournament board ask for ideas, and then it is posted where were fishing and that's the end. Your gathering of all the info about the
lakes and rivers will give all a better idea where and why we are scheduling a tournament at that location.
Thank You again for taking the extra step to make our tournaments the best.

Old Fisheye

Very informative posts here. I didn't have time to fish any CVWC events last year and not sure that I will in 2025 either, but I'll give my 2 cents.

For whatever reason, numbers are down in almost all of the river circuits. The Dubuque walleye club still has a ok turnout but some of the seasoned tournament guys from that area are also getting out of tournament fishing. Red Wing/Lake Pepin still has good turnouts for the national events and large fundraiser events, but not for the smaller clubs. I've heard mentioned a few times up there that the payouts for small tournaments aren't worth the entry (not my words). Pool 4 in June is always a lot of fun regardless of the number of entries. One thing I think keeps getting overlooked is early July tournaments on the river. The water levels are usually stable and wing dam fishing is incredible. One more note on the river: pools 11-14 have been considerably better than 8-10 from a fish quality aspect over the past few seasons. There just seems to be more 23"+ fish in the lower pools right now.

A lot of lakes around the state have been kicking out better sized fish in the last handful of years. I'd almost be in favor of fishing 3 lake events if it can be done schedule wise. Clear, Storm, Boji, and Spirit are the obvious ones and maybe throw in a reservoir (Rathbun, Red Rock, or Coralville) once in a while. I live down here in the Iowa City area, and Coralville can be tough for parts of the year due to muddy water conditions and pleasure boater traffic but when the water gets high during the summer or when it clears up in October, the bite has been great. I've had a couple days fun fishing pushing 30# bags this year and know others have as well.