Official State of Iowa Website Here is how you know

Iowa - Caught Fish Are Safe to Eat

Most of Iowa’s streams, rivers and lakes offer safe and high-quality fish that pose little or no threat to human health if eaten. Some limitations may apply for young children and pregnant women. Here’s a Fish Consumption Fact Sheet from the Iowa DNR and the Iowa Dept. of Public Health for more information. 

Find the most up to date list of consumption advisories at www.iowadnr.gov/Environmental-Protection/Water-Quality/Water-Monitoring/Fish-Tissue. New advisories are issued and existing advisories are removed, based on results of annual fish contaminant monitoring in Iowa.

Mississippi River - Pool 17


Pool 17 of the Upper Mississippi River extends 20.1 miles from Lock and Dam 17 at New Boston, IL to Lock and Dam 16 in Muscatine. Pool 17 contains 8,137 acres of aquatic habitat. Pool 17 has islands, side channels, and backwaters throughout most of its length. Beginning in Pool 17 and extending downriver, extensive agricultural levies border the river cutting off much of its floodplain. This training of the river has caused loss and degradation of much of the rivers side channel and backwater habitats. The Iowa DNR’s Lake Odessa Wildlife Management Area is located in lower Pool 17. The Big Timber and Louisa Divisions of the Port Louisa National Wildlife Refuge are also located in Pool 17.

 

Navigation maps are available from this US Army Corps of Engineers website (link takes you offsite).

In 2012, the Fairport Fish Management Team and volunteers from the local fishing club placed numerous cedar trees into the Big Timber Area (Coolegar Slough) for fish habitat.  This map shows those locations and provides GPS points for this new fish habitat.