The Wapsi is one of the more southern rivers where you have a chance to catch some smallmouth bass from a river with a small stream feel to it. I haven't fished much of this river and am hoping that someone that reads this might provide some more info for me. I have heard reports of nice fish (northern, walleye, catfish, and bass) from the section around Littleton. I myself have only fished the river this fall a couple of times near Anamosa. I was basically trying to find somewhere I could fish a moderate sized stream and catch some fish that wasn't so far away. Anamosa is only about half an hour from my house, so this seemed like a logical choice.

I haven't spent enough time at the Wapsi to pass judgement on the smallmouth fishing, but I have had some success the times I've been there. I haven't caught many smallies, but I did catch some. I think this is because of the time of year more than anything, but the walleyes were really biting. I had heard, from my neighbors, that the walleyes were hitting off of sand bars in the Cedar River. I found a nice sand bar in the Wapsi near the bridge I had parked at. I cast my rapala up and reeled it down over the back of the sand bar into the deep water behind it. Almost immediately I got a pretty good smack on the lure, a decent fifteen inch walleye. I fished that spot for probably half an hour and caught about ten fish on that plug and a white jig. None of them were too big, but I had more action than I expected on that cool October afternoon.

I have also caught a number of white bass from the faster moving deep water of this stream. They were all about ten to eleven inches and would have made nice fillets if I had brought a stringer or fillet knife. I also was bitten off a couple of times, so I guess there are some northerns around too. At any rate, I'll be fishing this river a little more often in the future and hopefully get more up here sometime.



Since I don't have any smallie pictures from the Wapsi, heres one of a nice walleye I caught in October 2004.