Fishing Maps

The interactive Fishing Atlas map shows contours for 218 county and state lakes, along with 2,500 fish structure locations. It also includes road maps, lake amenities and topography. Quickly zoom in on the lake of your choice with the search function.

Fishing Atlas - Plan your next fishing trip!

Iowa DNR maintains a catalog of habitat structures installed in Iowa lakes. This data is available via a downloadable GPX file.

How to download and use the fishing structure file for GPS units (Windows 10)

1. Left click on the “Catalog of Habitat Structures” icon.
2. Open File Explorer using the menu bar on the Windows Desktop. Make sure you see a file named “FishStructures” in the download folder in File Explorer.
3. Open the software your GPS unit uses. For example, if you are using a Humminbird depth finder, you need to open the Humminbird PC software to open the “FishStructures” file. Note: Lowrance Fish Finders do not have a software package, you need to use Google Earth.
4. Open the “FishStructures” file from the download folder using the GPS software and save to an SD card.
5. Insert the SD card into the GPS unit or upload the “FishStructure” file as shown in the instructional manual of the GPS unit.
6. The saved file "FishStructures.gpx" should be universally useable on most GPS units