Big Bass Fishing in Urbandale

Well, I’d read rumors of there being some big fish in this relatively small, very weedy pond. People have reported dragging catfish out of here as large as 15 lbs.  I hadn’t fished it myself in about 8 years. I got there around 6pm and fished the north side somewhat near the road for about an hour and a half. Caught about 7-8 blue gills. Then I got a little bored and was about to leave but forced myself to do one lap around the pond. I walked around just looking for a drop off because most of that lake seemed very shallow. The water itself was actually very clear and the visibility was wonderful. Anyway once I found what appeared to be a drop off I cast out a soft plastic worm a couple of times and on the 4th cast I actually thought I was snagged for a second before realizing I had this bad boy on the line. I was pretty excited. I hadn’t caught anything of substance that day and I didn’t catch anything else after that. I tossed it back very much alive so its still in there for you to go out and catch for yourselves.

Lakeview Park in Urbandale at night

Walker Johnson Park

I’ve started using google maps to find places to fish in Des Moines. That led me to discover this fishin hole that is actually rather close to my home, right behind the Walker Johnson Park Softball Fields.  The fishing here wasn’t very good. But could be in a few years if it doesn’t completely freeze. The pond itself is barely an acre and surrounded in thick vegetation. Which makes it pretty hard to run a crank bait when theres 6 ft of lily pads and other crap on the water. There were a TON of frogs here. If you wanted to catch some frogs I would send you here. Also a good place to grab some bait before going out catfishing. You could probably get 20 of the fish I caught in about 20 minutes. They were so small to land them I didn’t actually hook them, I just let them close their mouth on my hook and as I pulled them out of the water I pulled them over the shore, so they would go flying off my hook and onto the grass.

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