My dad Clarence Ganzeveld caught this dandy smallmouth bass on the East Fork of the Des Moines River outside of Dakota City, Iowa. Plenty of walleye anglers were out during my visit back home to Humboldt County this week. We ran into several people that were having luck despite the high waters. Here’s some video that I shot in Rutland, Iowa:

Most of the fish were caught in the slack waters adjacent to the spillways on both the East and West Fork dams in Rutland, Humboldt and Dakota City, Iowa. The pictured smallie was taken using a nightcrawler under a standard Thill slip-bobber. A hair jig tipped with a piece of crawler or a minnow bounced along the same area probably would have also worked but this particular location was the site of an old mill and most of the now crumbling concrete dam (and the rebar within) lays unevenly dispersed on the bottom which makes the possibility of snags all too likely. Slip-floats allow an angler in this situation to avoid hangups by keeping the bait off the bottom yet consistently within the strike zone of the fish.

Clarence will be going with us to Lac Seul this coming June and I know that myself and the rest of the Walleye Wisdom staff is looking forward to his company and obvious slip-float skills. Hopefully his luck on the water today will last him through the rest of the 2011 season. Thanks to a beautiful day of fishing dad!