(Guthrie County) One of the Iowa DNR’s top priorities in 2020 for the Fisheries Department in Southwest Iowa pertains to the Middle Raccoon River in Guthrie County.
The small mouth bass no-kill zone on the Middle Raccoon River will be expanded according to Fisheries Biologist Bryan Hayes. “Currently the regulation reads the no-kill zone starts at the Lennon Mills Dam and extends on downstream to the dam at Adel. That’s going to change. We are going to extend that small mouth bass catch and release zone up to Lake Panorama.”
Hayes comments on the reasons for the change. “The Lennon Mills dam is in disrepair and is old. It’s just not a good boundary. Conservation officers will routinely see people standing on the dam fishing and they’ll have small mouth bass in their fishing that they caught above the dam. Below the dam the small mouth bass are protected. We are going to extend that boundary.”
Hayes says this will add about a four mile stretch to the small mouth bass no-kill zone up to Lake Panorama.
