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.

Homemade Strawberry Dough Bait For Late Spring Carp

The good thing about a four year old is they love making strawberry dough bait since it is very much like Playdough. My son and I happily made strawberry dough bait the night before I went out fishing. The bait includes strawberry Jello, corn meal, flour, vanilla, sugar, and Wheaties.

I rigged up with some larger Raven floats, Raven #4 octopus hook, some shot, and Raven 10lb green mono-filament.

The night before I also chummed the area with corn at the private lake I was going to fish. My hope was that the chum and over night rain would get the fish on the feed.

I sat there for what seemed like forever before my first float shot down. I rolled up the slack and with a mighty swing I set the hook into nothing. A big swing and a miss!!! Another bite and another whiff! Grrrrr son-of-a….

My nerves are getting the better of me. Now completely off my game my float goes under yet again. This time I do it right. There it a huge swirl and the sound of drag. My first fish is at hand.

I manage to catch two more each fish bigger then the next. There are so many fishermen here in the US. That still look down and refuse to even try to fish for carp. I grew up fishing carp and I still have an absolute blast battling these brutes.

So you fishing snobs out there, drop your trout and bass stuff for a day, make some homemade bait with the kids, get up early and trash your nerves playing tug of war with

Some shiny monster carp!!!!

Quick Trip August 17 2012

I managed to get out for 1.5 hours. Had some strawberry dough left. I got these two by sneaking up on them as they cruised the shoreline for food!

nice carp from Daniel Byrne on Vimeo.

Carp Love Strawberry Dough Dessert

I have made two carp baits myself for a few years now. I make a pure Wheaties and vanilla dough bait and a strawberry dough bait.

Pondboys Strawberry Dough Bait:
1 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons sugar
1.5 cups corn meal
1.25 cups of flour
1/2 package of strawberry jello
1/4 cup of Wheaties crushed to powder

Combine these ingredients chill then roll into balls. Keep refrigerated. This last batch I made was perfect! Not too hard, not too soft, and it sticks to a treble very nicely.

I got a chance to try the baits after a light rain and scored 3 fish in an hour. I missed one as well.