Bassin' The Midwest: Time to Shake things up a bit!

Bassin' The Midwest: Time to Shake things up a bit!: Continuing on from our dropshotting technique...I would like to introduce you to two more techniques!  The Flickshake and the Shakey head! ...

Illinois Wisconsin Fishing: just another day in racine

Illinois Wisconsin Fishing: just another day in racine: Two cars pull into the river access at almost the exact same time, one car carrying a solo angler and the other with a duo. I'm sure we've a...

Quick Trip 02-27-2012

I got home and to my surprise it was still light outside. I ran to a pond near me to fish some cribs i dropped earlier. I hit two fish off of the the one that was farthest out on minnows and slip floats. One a straight hook and the other fish i got was a white tungstein tipped. My one crib is way to shallow and i will relocate it to another part of the lake as soon as i am daring enough to get in there after it.

Darkstar72's Fishing Blog: President's Day Panfish

Darkstar72's Fishing Blog: President's Day Panfish: Just a quick post to say I got an ultra light rod on clearance and paired it up with a nice reel and now I can have more enjoyment catching ...

February Chills and Scaly Thrills

So Winter has decided to leave us this year. FINE I say! BITE ME WINTER! Since there is no ice, anglers who would love to be sitting in their warm shelters need to change their game up some if they want to keep catching fish all year round. So we have been doing just that to keep our gilled foes at the end of our lines. There are some places that produce some fish even when some lakes still have thin ice on them. These spots include discharges, run offs, creek mouths, spillways, dams, warming lakes, and pond and lakes with at least some open water on them.

Today Darkstar arrived at my house coffee in hand before sunrise. Here is a bottom line, if you want your spot you have to get up earlier than the next guy. We arrive at a discharge and fish hard for two hours. The bite was slow but we managed to catch two fish for our efforts. DS caught a really nice carp and I a channel cat. We decide to move up river to Batavia where I knew a few deep holes. We completely dissected the holes but we came up empty.

My phone rings and Steelie Pete is on the line asking were we should meet to fish. We had planned on fishing in Elgin but since the bite was so slow we decided to switch gears and hit some ponds for ice out crappie and gills. The retention pond we picked was 90% still encased ice. We fished the only hole in the ice we could find. The trick to success just before and just after ice for me has always been to treat it as ice I am ice fishing. So targeted smaller ice presentations such as ice jigs, waxies, spikes, minnows, small floats, and split shot to control wind drift and depth. Ice plastics would work as well. All three of caught fish! Crappies and blue gills were the order of the day, each of us caught several fish. I had a small issue landing fish for a few strikes and the guys didn’t let it slip by without razzing me a bit. We told stories and laughed. However it is February and cold so 

Jack frost came along too, uninvited of course. He is kind of a jerk. He doesn’t even fish not sure why he even showed up! Well he kept bothering us as we fished and we slowing got colder and colder loosing the feeling in our fingers and toes. After some great fun angling with fellow DA Members we decide to call it a day.           

The Big Difference with DupageAngler.com

The Big Difference when it comes to www.DupageAngler.com is that It takes the basic forum experience and adds a Facebook front-end to it. What does that do? Well Let me tell you about today. After four random guys thought they were just going an average fishing forum. The found they had 2 levels of Profiles to build on, adding video, photos, and friends. Some of them even add their other social networks. These Guys one including myself started posting on their profiles and forum. Next the site led them to each others Facebook pages and groups were the conversation continued. The next step from this angling network, three of us found out we worked at the same company just different locations! Once we knew each other could be trusted with each others honey holes and everyone seem like a guy with character we made an event among ourselves to go crappie fishing! There was the dreaded blue bird skies and a wicked cold front.

Everyone Gave it their all but not even one bite for any of us. We laughed and talked. We told stories talked about the site and trips we had taken in the past. We got to put real faces with the tiny avatars we saw online and made some real friends. DuPage Angler does everyday what other sites cannot, transform online interaction into real, safe, fun experiences for nice guys that share the same passion for angling. From its angling network it's creating an elite alliance of good guys and friends who are meeting and having good times on the water fish or no fish. I want to thank DA members Csimon and Wilks19 for trusting Darkstar and I to come out and fish on their home waters. 

Darkstar72's Fishing Blog: COLD....8 degrees Fahrenheit on the Fox

More Pictures from our frosty wade! http://www.flickr.com/photos/fisherbyrne/sets/72157629276129821/

Darkstar72's Fishing Blog: COLD....8 degrees Fahrenheit on the Fox: Plans were made to wade today earlier in the week. Earlier in the week it was 40-50 degrees and downright warm by comparison. Today the Fo...

Fermilab Fishing: The Good Old Days

Not long after Close Encounters came out. My father woke up very excited one morning telling the family how he had a magnificent dream. I ate my Cocoa Pebbles as my father described a secret military base where aliens lived in colored houses and bred buffalo to eat. My father then drew a series of symbols and signs and a map with buffalo, strange lakes, scientists, and odds shaped buildings. My sisters and I just sat there an laughed at the crazy old fart.

I had forgotten about it the next week when he told us we were going out breakfast. We did not go out to eat often so all of us were in. After a nice meal at the Golden Bear Family Restaurant Dad decided that we were going for ride. As we drove he told us he kept having that dream and its was more and more vivid and he had to drive and find this place. My sisters and I teased him and my mother laughed nervously like the hillbilly had lost his mind. He had mom hold the map drawn on a worn piece of paper with pencil. The guy was a pretty good artist too and the map looked pretty freaking cool. We turn down a skinny road away from route 59 and my mother says “Marty I don’t think we are allowed to drive down here” as we went past a guard gate. When we hit a row of colored houses my family crapped their collective pants. Blue, Orange, Red, and Green houses! HOLY CRAP! Then a herd of buffalo! WTF! My sisters and I were now begging the old man to turn around and go home. Then we drove past weird shaped buildings and I saw guys in lab coats going to their cars. “Dad get us the hell out of here!” My mom “Daniel Patrick Byrne watch your mouth!” Then We came up to the Squished building and my father finally spilled the beans about what Fermilab really was.

A few years later dad told me to grab my best friend Ben and load up the wagon, we are going fishin! As we drove he told us that he found out that you could fish at Fermilab! We got there and all we had was worms. The place was pretty busy. There were bass fisherman and cat fishermen lining the shores. As we set up I asked the guy near us why the water was steaming he said it never freezes they use it to cool the accelerator. COOL! We had a bluegill contest that day. We filled or buckets that we sat on with water to act as live wells. The old man yelled 1,2,3 go! It was a whirlwind of bluegills and bobbers. The high score from my dad was over a hundred. (OF COURSE HE WON) Ben got 80 or so and myself only 76. We let them go as we counted.

A few years Later Ben pulls up to my house on a cold January day and asks if I have any cash. He says he has an idea.  I jump in his beater and we start driving. We stop at the local sports store. He tells me we are going open water fishing. I ask how and he says "Fermilab dude" in his California punker way. We buy two Daiwa micros (these were basically over grown ice rods not big enough to be ultra lights). We then stop by jewel and by beef liver. I asked him why beef liver and not chicken but he would not answer. So Ben’s plan was to use tiny cubes of beef liver to catch the baby channel cats the flourished at Fermilab. Man it was a blast! We caught dozens anywhere from 2-10 inches. We also got stung more times than I ever had. It was a GREAT time!

We fished there on and off after that but the older I got the less I liked the crowd. The last time I went as a young man I went to the weeds to mark my territory and when I got back both my ugly sticks were gone.

A few winter nights we sat freezing covered with snow soaking gills waiting for the giant flatheads that were mythic legends said to wonder the warm waters. I never did hook one.

Much later I took my niece there only to find out that they stopped pumping a long time ago and the water was now muddy and filled with carp. Some fisherman said if I worked for them there was still some nice bass. Broken hearted I never returned to fish.

The memories there however, are carved in my mind like a fine marble statue however and I am very happy my father scared the crap out of us that day.

Bluegill Madness Video

PB & DS Angling Feb 5th Video

Darkstar72's Fishing Blog: First Wade of 2012

Darkstar72's Fishing Blog: First Wade of 2012: 5:30 AM and my phone's alarm is going off in the ring-tone I selected for my fishing alarm.  It is a happy-sounding group of tones that remi...

A Look Back: Older Posts from the DuPage River

2003-2005 DuPage River Reports:

I Decided I needed to wet a line so I went to the DuPage around lunch time in the Naperville area. I caught about 11 small mouth 8 dinks one 12in, one 14in, and one over 15in.
I had a hog up to the shore one last jump and gone! I was drifting crawlers in eddies and casting a rebel craw in small pools. Almost half of the fish I got on the craw. The water is low fish are stacked up, it was a lot of fun.

Sep 10,03 

I got out again today fished a different stretch of water again in Naperville landed about 10 fish one was 14.5in and the rest were dinks, but I’m fine with that. Also caught 2 more, I got one channel cat and a nice rock bass. i was using a rebel craw and drifting crawlers again. All my fish came out of one large pool behind a small shallow rapid area with a steady current. Almost all were along current breaks. 2 or 3 came out of slack water in the back end of the pool. Good luck to anyone going out

Sep 15,03 

The water came up some with the rain and put a little stain to the water. The fish are still biting but with higher water they have spread more. I tried some new and old familiar water in the Naperville area for my usual hour and a half. I ended up with 3 caught and lost 3 smallies. I also got one rock bass. The three I landed came on crawlers under a float drifted into pools at the bottom of ripple areas with fast current. With higher water and faster current the drift was a little to quick for my liking but it still produced. I lost one fish on a pumpkinseed helgie. iIf I had more tIme to explore and get more serious, I think I would have done better. Good luck out there.

Sep 16,03

Went to Plainfield today and the water was up there further than I expected. With the fast current I couldn't get a decent drift so I moved under a bridge with deep holes along the walls. I managed to land 2 small mouth and a crappie. I lost a couple big fish one I think was a carp the other I’m not sure. I felt a solid head shake before she told me where I should put my pole.

Sep 25,03 

Made it out for about 1.5 hrs today, while ducking storm clouds and down pours I managed to get the best of half a dozen bronze bullets in pools below shallow rapid areas. 2 fell prey to helgies rigged with a split shot drifted harmlessly among the current, 2 were tricked into attacking crappie spiders reeled at a medium pace, and 2 snacked on the wrong crawler drifted slowly under a balsa float. About 4 of the little tyrants escaped my well laid traps. It was muddy and wet but still fun in Naperville today.

April 18th 04 The 3 hours I had on the water was great. I landed 16 or so smallmouth. Out of the 16 fish caught, 2 bigger fish; one about 1.5lbs and the other a solid 2lbs. They fell to rebel craws, blue fox spinners, case helgies, and a tiny crank bait from some company that starts with an M. It was fun to get out again.

May 4, 05 

I ventured out in the cold this week and did pretty well. I fished in the Naperville area and scored about 10 fish and missed about 4. I even caught a largemouth. Some of the small mouths were pretty nice between 14&18 inches! I drifted live bait mostly minnows in eddies and pools also along walls. It was a lot of fun to get out for a whole day, my first real excursion this year. Good luck out there.

Birthday Ice Fishing With The Fish TV

Birthday Ice Fishing With The Fish TV

On January 26^th I took the day off work as I always do to go Icefishing. I call up Rocknfish and we are ready to roll! We get to the frozen playground and start drilling. Five feet nothing, six nothing, 8 one or two, and SEVEN Jackpot. The fish were holding in seven feet of water not 6 or 8, it had to seven.

Presentation didn’t seem to matter as much. We got fish on plastics(micro nuggies), jigs n spikes, and jig and waxies. The bait had to be moving though. Almost all the fish were suspended as you can see in the photo above.We must of caught 20 or 30 birthday fish. We were using the FishTV and after taking a while to set-up, it was a real pleasure to fish with! From now on I will always have one in my line-up during ice season. We had one great outing during "The Winter That Wasn't"