I'm guessing that I had it at least a little nicer than Lewis and Clark did a couple of hundred years ago but I did explore some new territory - new to me anyway.

 In 2002 Iowa built a new lake and man what a lake it's become! Lake Belva Deer, located five miles northeast of Sigourney in Keokuk County. It sounds like more of a drive than it is. It's mostly all interstate and about 140 miles from my house in Denver. It took about two and a half hours to get there.

The Belva Deer recreation area has two very nice concrete boat ramps with rest rooms and an excellent campground with hiking and horseback riding trails. At 260 acres Belva Deer is not a big lake but with all of the standing timber, weeds, fishing jetties and man made structure it fishes like a lake ten times its size.

I went down to fish for Largemouth Bass and it was not hard to find lots of Bass ready and willing to put up a good fight.  There aren't a lot of Bass over three pounds in the lake yet but it won’t be long and this will be one of the premier bass lakes in Iowa.

I spent some time talking to one of the park officers and some other anglers to get an idea of what the population of all of the species in the lake are. There are few Walleyes and a decent population of channel catfish but the stars of the lake are the pan fish - Crappies, Bluegills and Redear sunfish.

There were people slow trolling twister tails on a lead head jig and other fisherman watching bobbers with a hook and minnow and all seemed to be catching good numbers of nice fish! Shore fishing access is excellent.  Although I'm not looking forward to winter, Lake Belva Deer will be an ice fishing hot spot for years to come. Until next time keep your lure wet!