Plan a weekend trip and stay within 100 miles of Waterloo so you aren't eating up precious fishing time driving. If you are an avid reader of this column you know I spend a lot of time on the Mississippi River but I also understand that the mighty Miss can be intimidating. For a nice change of scenery my son and I spent three days in mid August on Brushy Creek Lake. Located just off highway 20 between Webster City and Fort Dodge it's approximately 80 miles from the west edge of Waterloo but seems like a much shorter drive since all but four miles are interstate. 

Brushy is a relatively young lake built in 1998. Don’t let that discourage you - the fishing is already great. At 690 acres Brushy is a relatively small lake but with the huge amount of standing timber, shore line cover and off shore structure the entire lake is a great spot to fish! 

You can use any size engine on Brushy - but at no wake speed. This isn't a problem as there's four very nice boat ramps positioned around the lake to get you closer to a favorite spot. . Shore fishing is also an option on Brushy with eight well placed fishing jetties throughout the lake. 

There are also three very nice modern campgrounds in the Brushy Creek state park or you can stay in nearby Webster City or Fort Dodge. 

This lake has been stocked several times with good numbers of largemouth and smallmouth bass, channel catfish, blue gill, redear sunfish, walleye, black crappie and muskellunge. Alex and I spent our time on Brushy this trip fishing for and catching lots of largemouth bass, including one weighing in just short of seven pounds! 

We caught fish on a variety of lures but our best producer was a shallow diving square billed crankbait fished just outside the weed line on points. The action wasn’t non stop but it was good enough for us to want to plan another trip. The next time we'll take along some larger lures and heavier equipment to try and land one of the big muskies that we wrestled with on our bass tackle. 

I've crappie fished in the spring at Brushy with great success in quantity and quality but at least for me they are difficult to find in the summer. I haven't walleye fished on Brushy but the Cedar valley walleye club has held tournaments there and say it's an excellent walleye fishery. 

All of the different fish seem to be reproducing well on this lake which means it should remain great fishing for years to come. Close to home, nice facilities, and best of all good fishing - do yourself a favor and take a trip to Brushy Creek Lake. Until next time keep your lure wet!