Paul Trybul

I fish dams but usually only during those peak periods when the fish stack up. They are not my favorite places but I go where the fish are and I have had some great days below dams. There was one day I was atching some guys wade below the dam in Rockford catching some nice walleyes. I put my waders on and gave it a try. After I got about 1/2 way out and had spots where I could feel my feet being swept out from under me, I decided to turn back. When I got back to shore I told myself "it was not worth and that is the last time I'll try that". You have to use common sense in these situations. Is it really worth life or death to catch a few extra fish?

My story is a lot like Don R's. All 5 of my 20" + smallmouth have come from up north in lakes. 18.5" is the best I've done in IL waters and I've tied that several times. Even got (2) 18.5" in one day one time.

The latest 20 was about a week and a half ago when I caught this 20" pictured below. Its not the best picture since the sun wasn't at the right angle. We were anchored over a good spot catching 16-19" smallies pretty consistantly. I wasn't going to pull anchor just to get the right angle.

This one was caught on a 5" Kinami Hulagrub in a dark pumpkin color fished on a 1/4oz slider head. The fish came off a rocky hump in about 4-6ft of water but was near some deeper water. The retrieve was just a slow drag with some pauses. It went out over some deep water after being hooked and really bull dogged me down deep. It took a while to get this fish to break the surface.

The next one was the first 20" smallmouth I ever caught. Same lake but 4 years earlier.

This one was caught on a 4" purple senko dragged along the bottom on a 1/8oz slider head. We had caught several 18's and 19's out of this spot that this fish really didn't seem extra special at the time. It looked just like another 19 but this one just stretched out a little longer in the tail. The spot could best be described as a saddle. It was a narrow between too points that had shallow water coming up out of a steep drop into deep water. The bottom was mostly sand with a few softball sized rocks mixed in.

The other (3) 20's were caught on Senko's or Bass Pro Shops stick O's. It all the same thing in my book. The colors were pumpkin and white on the other ones.

Great topic. I wish a had some stories of local 20's but I'm still working on it. They just aren't that common in IL rivers. At least not the ones I fish.

Bald eagles are such a beautiful majestic bird, especially up close. I just came back from fishing in the northwoods and I had a cool bald eagle close encounter that I wanted to share. I was fishing on a largemouth/bluegill lake with my father and the bass fishing was kind of slow. I switched my 2nd rod over to a bobber and small hair jig to fish for some of the big bluegills I saw along the shore. The bluegills were just killing this hair jig. As I was reeling one in, a largemouth in the 20-22" range follows my bluegill up to the canoe and engulfs it. I was only using a small hair jig so there was no way I was going to land this bass. The bass held on for a long time and finally released the bluegill right at the canoe. I let the 5" bluegill go but it was doing the death twitch at the top of the water surface after being in this basses mouth. As our canoe drifted away I noticed a mature bald eagle leave its pearch on the tree and swoop down low right over our canoe and over the bluegill. On the 2nd pass the eagle extended it talons grabed the fish and flew it back to the nest. In a span of 5 minutes I had 2 very visual wildlife experiences I will never forget.

Jude,

We discussed this pretty heavy on the officer board over the winter. There was a situation on the Dupage a few years back when like 20+ guys showed up to fish a skinny section of water. The concerns were brought to my attention from other officers in a proactive type of way. Like Gregg said we have had several outings in the NW region and never had a problem before. I figured I'd cross that bridge when I got there. Well last Sunday with 12 guys showing up I pretty much had to cross that bridge. I would have liked to spend a little fishing time with all the anglers but that wasn't possible. I think in splitting up in 3 groups we did the best we could to minimize the impacts. The water was up so the group I led did little to no wading. The water temps had dropped in the mid to upper 50's and I observed no bass on the beds at this outing. I did within a few days after the outing start to notice fish on beds in the Rock River Basin on some tribs and the Kish. I only scheduled one spring outing because in the past they got rained out. The weather and water flows are much more stable in summer and early fall. We are all C&R anglers so I didn't really think of the impacts on spawing. Its not like we tournament fish where we relocate male bass miles from the spawning bed. I know some anglers don't fish during the spawn but I fish whenever I can March through November regardless.

This topic is definately a concern for me now. My next planned outing is on water skinnier than the south branch of this kish. My thought is to do a RSVP system with the 1st 6 to respond are in. At that time the meeting location will be revealed and we will split into 2 groups of 4. 1 group led by me and another led by another club officer. I'm not ready to give up the whole small water outing thing in our NW region just yet. If we take away small water we are pretty much just left with the Rock River which is an improving but not that great of a smallmouth fishery. The Kish outings can still work but we need to be prepared with group leaders and split up into groups of 4 and hit different areas. These are my thoughts but I am open for any input. These are just some of the challenges we face as a growing organization. We have to weigh the value of the social parts against the impacts against our goal of improving smallmouth bass fishing in IL.