(Lewis) In August 2025, Iowa Department of Natural Resources personnel lowered the water level at Cold Springs Lake near Lewis in preparation for the renovation project aimed at improving the poor size structure of largemouth bass and Bluegill and increasing near-shore habitat.
John Lorenzen, Fisheries Biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says Fish data collected annually for the past decade showed poor bass health with no bass over the legal length limit, not to mention the low catch rates of Bluegill and the quality of fish.
Lorenzen says that last October, the DNR collected 5,126 Bluegill measuring 1 to 3 inches from Prairie Rose and transferred them to Cold Springs. Lorenzen says this past week, they stocked some adult pre-spawn largemouth bass at the rate of five per acre.
Lorenzen says this summer Cold Springs Lake will receive 1,600 two-inch channel catfish from the Lake Rathbun Hatchery, and 288 more of this species from the same location in the fall.
The fishery renovation is only part of a process to improve the lake’s fish population. The project also included constructing in-lake fish habitat and pea-gravel spawning beds.
