EIGHT SUMMER ANGLING ADVENTURES

6-26-13 Kayak fishing with Dupageangler.com member Soonerbass aka Ted Yates:

We fished a suburban pond from out yaks and just crushed the fish! Sooner scored his on top water and I landed over 20 on four-inch Berkley Power worms it was an awesome summer night and a great way to break up the workweek. I landed an 18-inch fish on this trip! More on the trip click HERE

6-30-13 Whacker pond fishing with DA member JcCrappies (aka Chunsum Choi):

We hit three ponds and we had a blast!!! We went through so many whackers we had to stop at the house of Crabby Bass Lures partner Charles S and get some more plastics!! I landed an 18 and a 17-inch fish on this trip!

7-1-13 Kayaking and bassing a local lake solo to start my vacation:

I landed over ten bass with Crabby Bass Whackers and 4 in worms! My big fish for this day was a toad that measured 21 inches!!

7-3-13 Kayaking for summer panfish:

I was able to yak a private lake and got a bunch of 10-inch crappies and 7-inch gills. I used little atom plastics and night crawlers

7-4-13 Kayaking with Dupage Anglers and our kayak wars team:

Sooner Bass, Brim, JcCrappies, and myself all met at a small lake at dawn. The top water bite was non-stop for about an hour. Many bass were caught. Once the sun popped the bite all but shut down leaving us with only a few opportunities with plastics. I had so much fun. I landed 3 big fish on this trip a 17,18, and a 20 incher.

7-5-13 Short DuPage River wading trip fishing with Wacky Bass aka Marty R.:

Wacky and I had a couple hours and got a late start. We fished a stretch of the west branch in Plainfield and were covered in sweat before we even started fishing. We drifted live bait and grubs. We caught about 10 between us, had some fun, and then decided to get out of the heat.

7-6-13 Wading the West Branch with Chunsum (aka JcCrappies) in Shorewood:

We arrived very early and started drifting crawlers and crabby helgies. The Bite was not hot and heavy but persistence paid off. We did not catch many in our tradition holes many of the fish were hugging the shores under trees. I am glad Jc noticed this or we would not of caught at least 12 of our fish. My big fish for the day was 17 inches!

7-7-13 Guide Trip Booked with DuPage Anger Member Mcalla:

Mike want to learn more about wading and with the fox up and running we hit a tributary instead. We fished from 5:30 – 10:30 dodging most of the heat. We used my drifting technique with minnows, leeches, and crawlers. Mike scored big with 25 fish, six species, and several nice fish!! www.dupageguideservice.com

Fathers Day Catfish At Lasalle Lake

As usual I was up before light and ready to go. DuPageAngler.com Member Darkstar and I decided to go to Lasalle Lake for channel catfish and blue catfish.

Earlier in the week I bought a four-foot casting net for catching cat bait. I had some trouble learning to cast it right. I watched YouTube videos and got aggravated as this kid in this video made it look so easy!! I realized I was leading with the wrong arm. That made all the difference in the world. It really is not that hard. With and endless supply of shad in the ponds by me catching bait will never be an issue.

My partner’s johnboat is just big enough for this cooling lake. At the beginning of our trip a front was finishing going through and the waves were getting a little high so we tucked behind a shoreline were the wind just did not have enough room to produce big waves. We were in 13 feet of water. We did not see any blues here but we slowly built up a gigantic mass of small channel cats under us. In two hours we landed forty fish. We were using small pieces of chicken liver and the bite was fast and furious. It was a blast! I could not count to ten before I had a cat on. The chicken liver went as fast as our bite. We only had some scraps left and needed more bait. I had a very old package of cheese Magic Bait. We took the pre-made balls and washed them with the liver remains. It was disgusting but effective and added 20 fish to our day!

A funny thing happened in the mist of small channel cat madness. I set the hook and finally felt some decent weight on the line. We got excited and scrambled for the net. After a few exciting moments the fish was at the boat and with it a bit of shock. I had just caught a hybrid striper on chicken liver!!! The other weird part of this was the fish’s back appeared to be injured or deformed. To be honest if I had this fish’s issues, I would be eating whatever past in front of me as well.

The weather was finally stable and had left the lake almost like glass. Jason (Darkstar) wanted to search for blues, which we believed we could find in the deeper water. He watched his Lowrance intensely until we found a drop to 30 feet. We dropped two anchors preventing the boat from spinning or moving. We each had two rigs.  We had a modified wolf river rig on the bottom and we had slip float rigs set two feet of the bottom both loaded with the shad I caught earlier. The slip floats ended up being the hotter rig. I think better bait visibility and less drag or weight sensation improved our success.  We managed to score 7 blue catfish quickly, but all fairly small. The biggest was only about 17 inches. We were still looking for that big fish and the heat, hunger and fatigue after hours of fishing were starting to take it toll. Jason had his bottom rod in a holder when suddenly he got a drive by hit. His rod quickly bent then straightened back out. He set his float rod down grabbed his bottom rig and was waiting for a bite when suddenly we heard a short scream of drag, a loud bang, and a splash!!! His float rod got slammed while he was checking the other rod. The blue whale hit so hard that the rod slammed the side of the boat popped up in the air and flew into the abyss. It was so fast you could not even say “OH SH_T!”  We sat there stunned and could only imagine what was now towing his 100 dollar combo around the bottom of the lake. 

It was a long and fun Fathers day outing. We caught plenty of fish, had some great snacks the wife and kids packed, we had some great laughs, and now we have some great fish stories to pass on.

This weeks podcast has this story and more:
http://www.dupageangler.com/media/com_podcastmanager/Fishing-With-DuPage-Angler-062013.mp3

Illinois Blue Catfish a New Angling Adventure for the Suburban Fisherman

The rain and wind have been giving us some fishing issues lately, the rivers are up, it is to windy for kayaking, and bass have been a virtual yo-yo of biting activity.

A small few of us DuPage Anglers needed a change, something different to break up the usual line-up. The discussion started on catfish and stopped on the possibility of blue cats at Lasalle.

There are both blues and channels that swim there so I prepared an arsenal of bait for both whiskered foes we hoped to combat.  We had:

Crawlers

Smelt

Chicken livers

Red worms

Dough bait

Stink bait

Also the night before the outing I was carpin and noticed some splashing along the shore I grad my net and managed to catch a zip-lock bag full of fresh shad!

What started as a 2 guy outing quickly changed to a five-guy group as DA members called each other to see where they were fishing for the weekend. This trip included Sooner Bass, Dark Star, JcCrappies, Wacky Bass, and myself.

We met at 4:45am to give us enough drive time to get there for the park opening at 6.

Quick stop at Mc Donalds then a drive full of bull-shooting fishermen laughing and trading fish stories.

In my over analyzed planning to not to forget any catfishing tackle. I forgot to bring a jacket and the wind was ripping across the lake. Sooner loaned me a vest and DS lent me his jacket. Man I was still cold. Once you catch a chill they suck to get rid of.

I was nervous and had my doubts about the blues. I have fished channels my whole life so those I had covered, but blue cats are a rare gem in northern Illinois and I had never caught one before so my confidence was at level “pondboy stinks”.

We get set up and my first cast I get a small channel cat! Yes! Some of the pressure is off. We caught a couple dozen channel cats among us. These small cats are in Lasalle in force and it just takes slip floats, smaller hooks, livers, smelt, or crawlers. I am sure if we had leeches and minnows those would work as well. You could bring your kids there and have a pretty good chance of catching them.

Through the blowing wind I here someone yell fish on! Chunsum had a blue! Soo cool. I was excited just to see one that was not on TV or youtube. It was a beautiful fish He caught it on the shad I caught. About a half hour later I see my pole dip slightly. I grab the rod from the holder and wham!!! HOLY CRAP I ACTUALLY HAVE ONE!! The blues are natural strong and full of muscle. I love these fish. I was rigged with a 6 foot heavy action rod paired with a Shimano Cosair 300. I had a catfish rig form Jerry’s Flies.

I actually got the rig from a DA outing when I first joined. So glad I had it because it worked flawlessly. This fish also hit cut shad.

Marty Rogers aka Wacky Bass and founder of DA scored the biggest blue of the trip! He let ok a Hearty YAHOO!!!!  It was awesome to see him so excited.

Dark Star was next and there was a ton of excitement down the shore from me. He was quickly followed by Sooner who now had a fish on!!! Incredible. God blessed us all with blue cats. I was sooo happy everyone scored a cat. We scored a few more and we ended with 9 total. I think that was pretty cool since the only one of us with any real blue experience was sooner and none of us had fished blue cats at Lasalle before. All of the blues took the shad. I wonder if we would of caught any of these beautiful fish had I not gotten lucky catching the shad the night before.

If you want to try a new experience and have a different angling adventure, grab the gear, the bait and some friends head out to Lasalle and experience the force of the blue catfish.

An October Banner Day on the Fox River

 After 3 mornings in the 30's I was not expecting much of day. I took a vacation to go Salmon fishing but after a slow night casting and rivers levels very low I changed my plans to the Fox River.

Ted Yates aka Sonnerbass on www.DuPageAngler.com Had the day off as well. When we met at the river it was frigid out and we had the river to ourselves. All the candy ass mamma's boys started showing up at noon once it had warmed up.

The hole I was fishing, I was hoping to find a walleye or two but with this years incredibly low water I believe the flow just is not there to trigger the eyes to move up. The hole is chest deep and trucking in normal conditions. Today 4 foot maybe at the deepest. 

With the hole being so low and slower I did not have to pull out the Lindy rigs. My standard drift rig would do the trick. I was armed with the trio of awesomeness crawlers, leeches, and minnows. The floats I use come in different shapes for different depths and current speeds which can be switched out in seconds. These floats have really been the icing on my drifting cake. I truly believe My numbers have gone up by a quarter since I switched float companies.

It didn't take long maybe 2 drifts before I had the first of 40 cats, Yes 40, I know right? Anyway these fish were a blast. All small 5-18 inches most being around 10 inches. They were stacked up like cord wood in this hole which in the past had only been good for an occasional fork-tail. I just wish I had brought my ultra light or lighter drifting rod instead of my stiffer 7ft falcon walleye rod.

Sooner was scoring fish left and right as well. We also caught 3 baby flatheads between us.

We also scored some white bass 3-4 between us.

To make the day perfect we scored at least 8 smallies between us. Both of us lost two big fish each. Since we did not see them we are going with shad, yeh that's it shad.

It was a perfect day on the Fox River. Despite the low water and chilly temps. Remember just because it gets cold does not mean hang up the rods for the season!!

If anyone is interested in learning my methods first hand, or just want to wade we can  make that happen just contact me at www.dupagefishingguide.com.