Apple River Outing - QC Region

[Dave Jones]

7 attended our outing today on the Apple River. The weather was great, overcast skies and no wind. Our results were good. Ron, Trevor & Alberto caught 40 SMB in the Park and by the Scout Camp. Dave & Bart caught 25 SMB near the Scout Camp. Paul Jr, Paul Sr & Issac caught 3 SMB in the Park and 25 SMB exploring the Fever north of the Park. Most were small (5 to 7 inches), not many in the 8 to 11 inch age class. We did catch a few in the 14 to 16 inch range. Last summer's heavy rains has certaintly altered the structure we were used to. All in all a pretty decent day. Thanks to all who attended.

Dave

[Paul Trybul]

Dave, thank you for organizing this outing. 5 minutes into the outing I was standing next to Ron and I hooked into a decent smallmouth that went airborn and spit the hook. A minute late my son trips on a rock and put a nasty bruise and swell on his shin bone. I iced it down but the Trybul wolfpack had limited mobility after that. Since the easy access stuff at the Apple wasn't really happening we decided to do some bridge hopping/exploring a little north of the border. I tell you Wisconsin has the water access laws set up much better than our wonderful state of IL. If you go bridge hopping/exploring on an IL stream, you are more likely to see something like this:

 

 

 

In Wisconsin they are much more accomodating to the anglers. This is a sample of what we saw:

 

 

 

Considering our limited mobility, I was surprised how well we did. If I just showed you this picture of the 1st Fever fish we caught, and told you we caught 25 smallmouth with little exploring off of bridges it would be true but misleading.

 

 

 

The truth is there is a very strong year class of 4-5" dinks and that made up the majority of our numbers.

 

Here is the picture of the outing attendants minus me and my son.

 

 

 

There is an outing coming up in mid July if you missed this one.

[Bart Durham]

Thanks Dave for organizing the trip and showing me around and some of the access points in the river. This was my first trip to the Apple River and I enjoyed the trip very much. Dave was able to figure out the bite and we caught smallies throughout the day. Dave hooked into a nice one here:

 

 

I have to say the Apple River may be one of the most scenic Illinois rivers I have fished. I hope to return soon. Here are a few photos from the trip:

 

 

 

[Kev-mo]

Pretty pics. Hope to make it up there once this year...

 

Actually there were two years of heavy flooding and right around the same time in July. I was there for the 2010 event and was keeping an eye on the weather/gauges when the 2011 one happened..

[rprice]

Thanks Dave for arranging the day for us. We needed to get back to the family reunion before the ladies tossed us in the dog house but for 4 hours we really had a steady stream of hookups. For our 3 person party, we managed about 40 total and we each landed a 15" and I managed a bonus 16" and we know that's a trophy on this skinnny stream. I'm really tempted to bring my coosa next time mid summer when the water is a bit higher and see about floating downstream of the BS Camp or even south of Hanover. I don't see much more than 3 miles between take-outs on the map and I think the portages seem managable downstream of the camp. I may be in for a shock though. If I couldn't get through, the current isn't so strong that a paddle upstream would be impossible. Might be wise to try with a 2 person canoe first though. But it would be an adventure to try. There have to be some hidden-honey holes down there somewhere.