Drift Fishing Small-mouth and Catfish using Raven Tackle with DuPage Angler

I got a chance to go fishing with Marty Rogers founder of DupageAngler.com. I was excited because he is always crazy busy and fishing with him is always full of laughter.

We met way before sunlight and headed out west to a small creek that was finally not running high from all the spring rain. Our plan was to wade and drift fish for catfish and smallmouth using Raven floats, live bait and long rods. For more information on how we drift fish click HERE. The one thing I can say about Raven Tackle as it has dialed in our technique and our catch numbers has sky-rocketed.

We had the holy trinity of live bait crawlers, leeches, and minnows. For some reason the minnows just were not getting hit but the leeches were. Usually it is the other way around and in a hurry we will pass on the leeches.

This creek is very dynamic and spring rains design a new creek each year. Most years holes that are filled in by flooding are replaced by some new ones. This year there was only one new hole but many old holes were gone for good. We got on fish but had to fish twice as far as we usually do. This broke my heart a bit as three of my favorite holes were either half the size or non existent.

Marty and I fished and laughed and caught a ton of fish most small and not picture worthy, but great just the same. It definitely was a fun angling adventure.

This week's Podcast Fishing Spring 2014

Kayak + Carp = Yarpin 3 Days of Great Yarpin

Kayak + Carp = Yarpin 3 Days of Great Yarpin

Usually in the spring I am bassing and bassing it hard. But with the longer winter, weird spring, and constant rains I have turned my sights to carp. I have been fishing them harder and longer then most seasons. I have introduced the art of hair rig fishing, new chumming techniques, and help from BigCarpTackle.com

After several sessions of shore fishing successfully for carp this season, DuPage Angler JC Crappies (Chunsum, co-owner of Aurora Lure Company) and I decide to try something we had never done before and that was kayaking for carp.

We picked an un-assuming muddy farm pond we have bass fished and that I had carp fished from shore once and got a few fish. Each night at dusk I would arrive at the lake and chum with corn and handfuls of boilies before fishing the next morning.

The cool thing about Yarpin is I do not have as much tackle as if I when I am bass fishing. We carried a couple rods, floats (both Raven and others), rigs, pliers, and the very important net. Armed with a pile of offerings and our Pivothead glasses we went to work.

JC Crappies(Chunsum) is awesome to fish with. We met on DuPageAngler.com and through my guide service and became fast friends. He is a fisherman, photographer, blogger, coach, pro-staffer, and a programmer. He is also a giant smartass.

Early when the fish would approach the surface into the chum line of floating bread we would only be fishing a foot down. When they backed off we went to 3 feet down. The lion’s share of fish came on a break that came from a large 2 foot deep flat into a 7 foot hole. The boilies played a larger role at this time. Although I had a half dozen flavors corn, pineapple, and strawberry worked best.

Chunsum did a great job of capturing video of this awesome carp fishing from a kayak (Yarpin). He composed this in 3 episodes please watch and enjoy. 

Quick Trip "a dance with Maggie"

Jc Crappies and I were able to get out for a short time before the frigid temps of 2014 struck. It was right after a big snow and getting to many of our spots was just not going happen without the roads being better. We pick a very small pond behind a large building that helped block the wind. This lake is like a box of chocolates we never know what we are going to get. Sometimes it is bonanza sometimes bust.

Jc lowered his knew camera down and we sent Magic Maggie down to do her work. Slowly his screen filled with fish! They were not aggressive besides a couple fish that surprised us. We had to get Maggie to dance and entice these fat boys to go. Then we started hitting the gills not crazy but consistently until or time ran out.

It was a blast we both had different tungsten jigs with Magic Maggies from Aurora Lure Company. They worked great when it slowed I would pair the Maggie with a spike. This really helps your bait last if you are using the live stuff. I also used a couple Swedish Pimples and Big Eye spoons tipped with a Maggie and or a spike. These baits are pretty cool and I am sure you will hear more about them.

Below is a promo for the Maggie with just a little bit of footage from that day.

IONLURES introduces new C3 Balsa Premium Crank bait

IONLURES Formerly know as Zen introduces new C3 Balsa Premium Crank bait

Both DupageAngler.com and Pondboy’s Angling Adventures have been blessed with a new sponsor. I have had the pleasure of being able to throw one of these beautiful C3 Balsa baits.

I went out and it was a brisk 39 degrees and the wind was chucking at 25. Although I had a new bait to throw, I was not expecting much. I figured the bass would be in their sweats and on the couch with no intention of paying my offerings any attention.

Riprap and Crank baits have a love hate relationship. Bass love the cranks and cranks hate the riprap. Many a crank bait has sacrificed itself at the alter of the riprap when a good bite is on.

The first of what would be five bass came one after the other. They were all dinkers but in 39 degrees and with the wind I was stoked. I had only been out for an hour when tragedy struck! The rocks had a death grip on my new crank bait!!!!! Who has not gone through this? I snapped, yanked, and pulled for about ten minutes, then SNAP!! The lure was 8 feet away from shore and if it had been warmer I would have gone after it. My heart is broken.

My heart is broken for a few reasons. Let us just start at the overall quality. Some baits as soon as they sit in your hand you can just tell it is awesome and solid. The paint job was flawless and the eyes one on each side are built to last. One of the best things is the way the rings and lip are built, you will not have to fine-tune this bait. The one I had was the lime in a shad pattern. It dives from 3-5 feet and weighs 3/8 oz. The nice sharp quality hooks did their job as well. These baits you can easily  see that they are hand built with some sophisticated tech.

I am looking forward to the future of IONLURES and what they are going to keep bringing to the table with these high end stealth balsa wood baits.

Fall Des Plaines River Pike

After reading DuPageAngler.com member Sooner’s BLOG on Kayak Pike Fishing, Jcrappies, Darkstar and myself could not take it any longer and decided to take the hour drive in the dark to the Wheeling area to fish for northern pike.

There are not many pike in the Naperville area so this is not a species I get to fish often. When I was younger I used to go to Canada once a year so at least I knew how to fish them. We put in at sunrise and it was 37 degrees. I had to sport a Beard Head to keep warm for the first couple hours until the sun was up.

Right off the bat Darkstar has what looked to me a nice pike swipe and miss at his Danny Spinner with a yellow blade. I threw spinners baits, the standard mepps, spoons, swim baits and some cranks without any luck. Since is has been cold and this was our first time I was praying that one of us would score.

I put on a Danny Spinner with a bronze blade praying for just one hit. We came up to a four foot deep wooded bank I made a cast parallel to the bank. I start telling DS that this stretch looks pretty good and as soon as I finished my sentence I get slammed!!! Most of the pike I have seen have been smaller so I was not expecting much. Then it realized it was hooked and I see this huge head come up shaking like mad! Whoa….. A few moments later I had her tired thank god JC had a boga grip. The pike was beautiful and measured at 31 inches. A great pike anywhere. It was awesome

That would be my only fish. Jc had to leave and just as he was paddling away DS caught a nice hammer handle on his Danny Spinner! Unfortunately that was it for the day. We fished hard but God only gave me that one hit I was praying for.

We will definitely be back in the spring when conditions are better and things are a little warmer.

Return of the Grass Carp Nemesis The Sequel

After my last carp experience I have gotten carp fever. I have been making new flavors of dough baits and have started to use a hair rig with boilies as well. I have been fishing in the evenings, the last two hours before sunset. It seems the fish lately have become very active during this time when the wind lays down.
The past few days I have caught and lost some nice cats and common carp. I have been chumming the bottom with banana scented corn and the surface with different kinds of bread, I fish the boilie on the bottom and the different dough baits near the surface. I have a third rod sitting on the side with a bread ball set 1 foot under a float. Once I see any surface activity I pull the dough rod out and quickly cast the bread rod.

Last night fishing with chunsum it was this bread rod that hooked yet another grass carp!!! I could not believe I have hooked two within a week of each other since they are few in number in the waters I fish. My guess is that they are feeding more heavily before much of the vegetation dies before winter. To see what happened you will just have to watch for yourself!

Bring on the THUNDER

Bass fishing had been pretty slow in our area. Ted (Soonerbass), Chunsum (JC Crappies), and I decided that kayaking for crappie might be a better idea. A cold front passed just an hour before we started and I actually did not think we were going to do much of anything.

We put in and it was still dark with mist on the water, God I love that. Ted and a few others have been throwing crappie thunders for sometime. I have never liked the way they look or their action. These guys crush fish on them so I have joined the Thunder wagon.

Wal-Mart sells them pretty cheap in about three color combos. JC made a smart move and bought similar bodies from Strike king.This way he does not have to keep buying whole baits and can reuse the heads after the bodies get shredded.

The bite was slow but not terrible. Considering I was expecting the skunk, I was pretty happy to hook up. All three of us were hooking bass. I would like to say that bass was our target and in our genius we decided to use smaller crappie baits, but the truth is we only caught a few crappies.

I had brought minnows because of the cold front and my low expectations for the day but they only caught a couple fish. However, one of them was a beautiful 19 bass!

The crappie thunder out produced live bait even in tough conditions I was a bit taken back by that. I really thought I would be double minnowing it and only catching crappie.

I am now a thunder addict and it will be a go to on most of my crappie trips in the future.

My Nemesis The Grass Carp

This story starts quite a few years ago when we had just moved in a new neighborhood. I had my son with autism with me as we fished for bluegills at a local pond. At the time he was still using sign language and hardly talked at all. He might say maybe cookie or juice. So we were sitting there when he stands up points and says SHARK! First I was shocked that he spoke and second I was shocked at what I saw. There was this dorsal fin out of the water and three feet behind that a tail!!!! That means there was about three more feet to the head of the beast. This really got my attention and started my quest to fair hook and land a Grass Carp.

Each year I go out at least twice to carp fish and the grass carp has been the unicorn that has evaded me. Now the ponds in which I fish they are very few in number but they are giants. I try standard American carp fishing for them bread, corn, dough baits, and cherry tomatoes.  In all my trips I have only fair hooked two grass carp until now and lost both. It seems my best chance at success is when they can be spotted and stalked. They also have to be feeding. One of these days I will to learn to catch them without seeing them. If anyone across the pond could point me in the right direction that would be great.

On this day it had just rained and I was looking for common carp by pipes feeding off the fresh food being delivered via the rain run-off. I did not see any movement. I was about to leave when a saw a huge tail pop up out of the water!! I quickly took some bread and threw a few pieces to chum and see if it would react. It quickly sucked down two large pieces. With my hands shaking uncontrollably I could hardly form a bread ball. I set the bait one foot down under a Thill float. I was using a bass pro 8-foot float and fly rod and a Shimano reel. The first cast the float went down quickly and I have a big swing and a miss. Man I missed another one I thought to myself. Even shakier I baited again. This time when it slowly started to swim away I nailed it!!! The next couple of minutes were shear terror and I watch my reel scream and line leaving the spool.

At about the five-minute mark I realize that I have no net, camera, and I am fishing off a 3-foot ledge!!! I franticly call my wife with one hand while fighting the white whale with the other. JUST DON’T LOOSE IT JUST DON’T LOOSE IT was playing over and over again in my brain. After about another 5 minutes my wonderful wife comes running with a net. The fish is soooo big I actually have to get in the water to land the behemoth.

YES!!! I have finally landed my first grass carp. I could not be happier. I conservative guess would be that it was 40+ inches and well over 20 pounds!! What a fantastic moment in my fishing career. Now of course since I have a bad case of fishing pox I am researching how to increase my numbers landed per year. It was awesome, my legs shook when it was all over and I had to catch my breath. What a great memory this will be.

Crabby Bass Lures Score Big With New Swim Jigs

Armed with one rod and two of Crabby Bass’s new swim jigs, I went out in cold front conditions not expecting much as it was windy and the temp had dropped over 10 degrees overnight. I decide that I would take a blue/white bait and a chart/white bait out with me. I paired them up with Big Hammer swim tails. I casted often and moved quickly. My goal was to cover as much water as I could and find the most active fish. It really paid off!! I land seven fish and lost 3. One I lost broke my heart. It was really heavy and it ripped drag and broke off before I could say oh Sh_T.

The Crabby Bass Jigs worked better then I ever could of expected. They are well made and held up to me slamming then against rip-rap for a couple hours.

They offer football jigs in 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 oz. Swim jigs are available in 5/16, 3/8, and 1/2 oz.

Colors include the following:

Brown-brown head
Green pumpkin-GP head
GP/purple-GP head
Blue/white-White head
Chart/white-Chartreuse head
Brown/orange-brown head
Brown/chart-watermelon red head
Black/blue-black head
CK special-GP head
Bluegill-GP head

The hooks are sweet and the skirts are solid

They are selling them at a good price for $4.00 each.

Please visit CrabbyBasslures.com and try some of their new jigs!!!

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.