Where are all the Illinois Guys ?

[bonzai22]

4 hours ago, Jartbek said:

Nice I don't have a boat so I just fish along the bank.

Oh I gotcha some of the fish were schooling right around the dock when I was there. 

[cadman]

I fished a new lake this past 4th of July weekend. Lauderdale lakes in S.E. Wisconsin. Went out there with my buddy and got there around 6 a.m. I started fishing and underspin and he started with a top water. Right out of the launch I picked up a small bass. In the next 2 hours we picked up 20 bass and 6 pike. The biggest bass was 14". Next the inevitable happened, my buddy hooked me with a treble hook which went through my hat and then into my scalp behind the ear. My buddy couldn't push the hook through to cut the barb so we ended up going to emergency to a hospital in in Lake Delavan. Anyway, 2 hours later and a tetanus shot we were back at Lauderdale Lakes. When we got back we fished for 5 more hours and picked up 3 more pike and 6 more bass the fishing really slowed towards noon. All in all it was a good day fishing. I guess if you want to take someone out to learn how to bass fish this is a good lake as it has tons of bass everywhere. The only drawback was all the bass were small a lot of 12-13" bass. I would like to try this lake in early Spring, and I will try it in late fall this year when the lake empties from boat traffic.

 

   I was also out at Lake Beulah as well and will post some pics later.

[cadman]

My wife and I went to Lake Beulah on the 4th of July. I had a really slow day on the water , but my wife did really well. She got 6 fish with the three biggest being 15-1/2, 16 and 18" The 18" was almost 3 lbs. She caught them all on my custom made underspin. I am really proud of her fishing skills she has developed over the years. Job well done. Whatever she did that day, she did well and out fished me. She's been kicking my butt fishing this year.  Plan on going to Little Muskego on Saturday. I'll post results next Sunday.

[slonezp]

For you guys with kids ages 5-15 that live up north:

Conservation Youth Day Game Fair. Saturday August 12th.

https://sites.google.com/site/youthdaygamefair/

[Skunked again]

Is everyone  ? Awfully quiet here.

[Tracker22]

I've been fishing but nothing to brag about. I haven't been able to find a pattern. Seems like I can catch one fish per lure.

 

[slonezp]

With the floods in Northern IL the past couple weeks my stomping grounds (Fox Chain)are still closed to boat traffic. Did get out on Sunday to do a little pan fishing on a lake that will remain nameless. 

[Skunked again]

Nice mess! 

[slonezp]

Went to Lake Tichigan this morning, north of the border in Racine County. Never been there before. Fished 6:30 til 11:30. River temp was 68 and lake temp was 74. Ended up with 7 largemouth and a bunch of pike, one of which I brought home for dinner. The one I harvested was 26" and real thick. Lost one in the net that would have gone thirty plus. Net was too small. The rest were snot rockets. Most were caught on jerkbaits and swimjigs but got a couple on a popper. Map cards came in handy for fishing underwater points and drop offs as all but 1 fish were caught offshore. Huge baitfish population which I believe to be gizzard shad. Found bait balls all over the lake and bass/pike busting shad at the surface for a good portion of the morning. Lake has serious potential and I will definitely be returning. 

[cadman]

14 hours ago, slonezp said:

Went to Lake Tichigan this morning, north of the border in Racine County. Never been there before. Fished 6:30 til 11:30. River temp was 68 and lake temp was 74. Ended up with 7 largemouth and a bunch of pike, one of which I brought home for dinner. The one I harvested was 26" and real thick. Lost one in the net that would have gone thirty plus. Net was too small. The rest were snot rockets. Most were caught on jerkbaits and swimjigs but got a couple on a popper. Map cards came in handy for fishing underwater points and drop offs as all but 1 fish were caught offshore. Huge baitfish population which I believe to be gizzard shad. Found bait balls all over the lake and bass/pike busting shad at the surface for a good portion of the morning. Lake has serious potential and I will definitely be returning. 

I'm glad you liked it. I fish there 2-3 times per year, and there are days when you can load up on 20+ fish per day in one spot. The bass school there heavily. You definitely need to hit it in spring and late fall. My wife got her personal best out of there 6.2 lb largemouth.

[slonezp]

@cadman is there a better ramp or a closer ramp than the DNR ramp at the mouth of the river? The no wake zone is a bit shallow and the run thru it takes an awful long time.

[cadman]

I fished Eagle Lake this week is S.E Wisconsin. This lake continues to disappoint and I will not go there anymore. 2 years ago, my buddy and I tried it several times and every time we've gone there the results were poor. We tried mornings with no boat traffic and evenings as well. This last week kind of put the last nail in the coffin. My wife and I started fishing there at 5:00 am. I got my first fish about 5:30 am. which was a respectable 15-1/2 " largie. For the next 5 hours nothing. Water inside the buoys was 2'0 and real weedy and the trolling motor would get wrapped with weeds. Water further outside of the weeds was 5'0, but that was where all the skiers were. Towards the end of the day, I got 2 really small bass. After talking to a couple of guys on the water, there is only one spot where there is any structure on the lake and water drops out to 11' max, and that was where I got my first fish. Also as the day wore on, there must have been 20 boats all in the same spot, which stretches about 200 yards. talking to some of these guys,  they said that is the best part of the lake, however when you put 20 boats there it is too crowded. 

[cadman]

20 minutes ago, slonezp said:

@cadman is there a better ramp or a closer ramp than the DNR ramp at the mouth of the river? The no wake zone is a bit shallow and the run thru it takes an awful long time.

I launch out of River City Marina which is on the south end of the river by the dam. You pay at the marina lock box and park on the street. It is $10 to launch. The only problem is that the launch is steep, and my boat trailer has to go in deep, otherwise my boat won't slide off. Same problem retrieving it. Launching out of River City Marina naturally is on the river, so you will have a longer no wake ride in the morning. However, it is much better than the DNR ramp, and I've never gotten stuck on the river. There is also another launch across from the river and across from the marina by the library. Very good launch, I believe it is free, however it doesn't open until 8 or 9 :00 am, by that time I have already been fishing for several hours. The lake at the north end in my opinion has the best fishing, however many guys do really well on the river.

[Scott F]

in the last two weeks, I've made 2 trips to the Hennepin Canal about 100 miles west of Chicago, right off I-80 at Rt. 40. The canal where we fished, is dead straight, running east and west. It's about 30 feet wide on average and about 4 feet deep. The north shore line has a lot of overhanging trees. Each shore line has a solid, thick, weedline coming out 6 feet or so from the shore. There are some open pockets. Even though the center of the canal is relatively shallow, there isn't much vegetation. My first trip had overcast skies and it was close to raining. A whopper plopper 90 worked along the weed edge was my most effective bait. 4" senkos and a Ned rig got the rest of the  dozen or so bass I got. Most fish were 13-16 inches. 

I went back this past Friday. It was overcast again but the high temperature never got above 60 and the wind was blowing straight down the channel at about 15mph in the hours between 6:30am and noon when we quit. It felt more like October than early August. My fishing partner got nearly all his fish on a 1/4oz rattle trap. I got mine on a Red Eye Shad, a Lucky Craft pointer and a ned rig. I spent too much time pounding the open pockets in the weedline with a frog but I was determined and finally landed one and had a couple of other blowups. All together, we had another 2 dozen which we thought wasn't too bad considering the cold front we were in.

The Hennepin Canal has a 10hp limit but we only used the trolling motor to cover the mile or two we worked. Since we were in his boat both days, we were moving quickly as he likes to power fish and hates slowing down for jig or plastics. We may or may not have done better working the weedline and downed wood more slowly. I would have liked to give that a try.

[Tracker22]

Last two trips, different lakes, I've been throwing walking baits only to have bass slapping at them. I mean a lot! I've had them slap it two or three times. Some of which have been pretty big blow ups. Anybody else experiencing this lately?

 

[slonezp]

Hit Tichigan again today. Snot rockets were more active than bass. Caught 3 bass that kept and only a few more that didn't. Got bit off by pike a number of times as well. Jerk baits, swim jigs, wacky worm and cranks. Also, found a huge school of gar. 2 and 3 at a time following the crankbaits back to the boat. No takers.

[cadman]

Fished Powers Lake on Sunday. Fishing was very slow and the fish were very small. Got 6 bass and all were between 13-14". All bass were caught on a jig and wacky worm.

[Skunked again]

Went to silver lake yesterday. Couple little bass on a 10" worm. 

Tried pushing crankbaits for crappie. Couple of small ones, I thought cranks where supposed to get the big ones? 

[Tracker22]

Went before the eclipse and got four over fives on Big Bite Baits tilapia lizard.

[slonezp]

9 hours ago, cadman said:

Fished Powers Lake on Sunday. Fishing was very slow and the fish were very small. Got 6 bass and all were between 13-14". All bass were caught on a jig and wacky worm.

We almost went to Powers. Heard fishing was slow and there was a pretty good algae bloom so we passed.

[cadman]

9 hours ago, slonezp said:

We almost went to Powers. Heard fishing was slow and there was a pretty good algae bloom so we passed.

Water was very clear when we went, however fishing was very slow.

 

I plan on going to Delavan this Friday. Hopefully we'll get some bigger fish. 

[perd]

Hello, I'm new to the forum. I live near the fox so that's what I mainly wade and kayak fish. I also travel around quite a bit fishing. I'll throw in a report from the last few weeks.

 

Smallie bite on the fox doesn't seem to be where it was pre flood, still catching a decent amount of 14"+. Got a 19"er and watched a friend pull a 20.5"er out of the  same hold during the height of the flood. So far it's been a good year lots and lots of smallies and tangled with a couple 5lb give or take largemouth.

 

Looking forward to taking a trip to Kentucky lake early November for smallies and trying to dodge the storms this weekend might head to pool 13 for some yak fishing, camping and possibly somewhere else for a boat rental.

 

Is anyone familiar with any of these yak fishing tournaments? I'd like to enter one but the process seems convoluted for the ones I have seen...

[stk]

Hey @perd,

 

Thanks for the report.  And nice job on those smallies!  As for the yak fishing tournaments, I'm not sure how much you know but the sport has grown a lot in the past 2 years and is still relatively young.  The cool part is that there are a combination of online and live tournaments.  Kayak Bass Fishing (KBF) is the big nationwide group that runs the majority of the online tournaments but they do have live trail events throughout the country.  There is a KBF trail event at Lake of Egypt in IL in October.  The sport is relatively young and has some growing pains, but it's pretty fun if you are into that sort of thing.  There are also many smaller clubs in each state and a lot of them are KBF affiliates/partners.  The online tournaments leave a lot of the responsibility up to the angler and that's probably why the rules are the way they are.  I've been fishing these tournaments for the last three years and I can see how to a beginner it may seem convoluted but the rules have evolved and continue to be changed as the sport grows.

 

If you have any questions please send me a PM or reply and I can answer as best I can.

- Tony

[toni63]

Had Friday off, went to Newton. Caught about 15-20, these were the couple of decent ones, both caught on a deep crank bait. I tried the black n blue jig-n-pig as someone else mentioned, worked real well too but by the time I got around to using it I didn't have a whole lot of fishing time left. Never had much luck with jigs anywhere else but certainly going to be a go to bait there now. Lot easier on the shoulders and arms than deep cranking.  

 

On a funny side note, I did catch two 10 inchers on one cast of the crank bait at one point. I was reeling them in, thought I had a halfway decent fish on, imagine my surprise when two little mouths, each one attacked to a different treble hook, came up. I was fumbling around trying to get my phone out to get the pic when the one on the back got off. Shoulda netted em I guess. I never had that happen before but I have heard it happening to other people.
 

[Skunked again]

Nice job!