All waters · Iowa · Big Spirit Lake

Big Spirit Lake, IA

Lake in Dickinson County, Iowa. At 5,684 acres the largest natural lake in Iowa, a shallow glacial prairie lake on the Minnesota line. One of the state's top walleye and yellow perch destinations, with northern pike, smallmouth bass and bluegill rounding out the catch. Open-water trolling and winter perch through the ice are both productive.

53

Overall bite score

Scored 5 min ago · recomputed every 30 minutes

Water tempModeled70
Pressure trendNOAAsteady60
SolunarComputedmoon 57% lit45
Recent stockingState data50
Time of dayComputed50
WindNOAA30
Cloud coverNOAA35
PrecipitationNOAA50

Each instrument reads 0 to 100. The score is their weighted blend, tuned for lakes and reservoirs. No black box: every reading names its source.

What swims here

8 tracked species in Big Spirit Lake, with the months each fishes best.

Walleyeabundant
Yellow Perchabundant
Black Crappiecommon
Bluegillcommon
Largemouth Basscommon
Northern Pikecommon
Smallmouth Basscommon
Yellow Basspresent

Water facts

TypeLake
CountyDickinson
StateIowa
WaterFreshwater

No representative live USGS water-temp gauge (the Iowa Great Lakes gage-height feed has a stale temp series), so the bite score uses the seasonal baseline. Ramps: Marble Beach State Recreation Area, Mini-Wakan State Park, Templar Park. Walleye 19-25 in protected slot (release 19-25 in; 3/day) in effect on Spirit + Okoboji chain, verify on the Iowa DNR special-regs page.

See the full forecast for Big Spirit Lake in the app: best windows, 7-day outlook, what to bring, and offline regulations. The score and essentials are free.

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