New member intro.

[Jay D]

Greetings all. My name is Jay and I'm a SW suburban resident and longtime fisherman of Hickory Creek. My preferred weapon of choice is a fly rod these days but do manage to bait fish for panfish at the Lemont Quarries a good bit over the summer.

I'm glad to see there was discussion here in recent years regarding a clean-up. Much to my dismay someone decided to have a numbered rubber ducky race in the creek maybe 2-3 years ago, which left numerous unclaimed toys along the creek. I reported it to someone at the New Lenox municipality (water district) and didn't get a response. Never did find out what that was all about, or who sponsored that. At any rate there are any future talks of a clean up I'd be willing to get on board and offer my time and thoughts.

Not sure what's happening with the possible Pilcher Park dam removal, either. I haven't heard any discussion of it in the past 5 years. I personally have mixed feelings about it, and I'm curious as to how a removal would affect the fishing upstream of Pilcher. There have been rumors of pike in the creek, even upstream of the dam, persisting for years, in addition to solid documentation of sauger below the dam. I fish well upstream of the park and have seen no pike, however someone I know claims to have caught a bass he believed to be wounded by a pike.

Overall it's a nice creek and it is a bit of an underrated gem, I feel fortunate to have it close to home.

 

 

[Bart Durham]

Welcome aboard Jay, if not tonight hopefully you can join us soon for one of our zoom fly tying sessions we will be conducting this winter.  I agree that Hickory Creek is an underrated gem and we need to do everything possible to keep it a strong smallmouth stream.  Lets talk more about what the ISA can do in the future to help with those efforts.

[Jay D]

Thanks Bart. I am indeed a tier, and would like to know more about your ZOOM meetings. I tend to fish the creek with 3 flies, Chernobyl Hopper, Wooly Bugger and my secret weapon, the Shenk Streamer. I like to keep things fairly simple and one of those usually does the job. I used to belong to DRIFT and Tim Holschlag's presentation was very helpful, one of these days I need to master the crawfish hop.

 

[rich mc]

if you like the shenk streamer  its very similar to my shannon streamer just google it for a video by flyfishohio. use bernat blanket yarn as bohemian chenille is not available and gets too heavy

[Jay D]

Just watched the video, looks like a good one to try. The challenges with the Shenk Streamer are that you need to get it weighted right (at least the version I tie),  the rabbit fur is messy and a challenge to wrap properly, then you have to trim the crap out of it. A great fly, but takes a good bit of practice to tie it well. I'm going to grab some of the yarn and give the Shannon Streamer a whirl.

For those interested in the Shenk Streamer, here's a good tutorial:  

 

[Ryan S]

Welcome Jay D. I joined last year and the people on this forum have been a huge help as I begin fly fishing.  Sounds like we may fish some of the same waters. Maybe I will see you out there sometime. Cheers.