Eric

Wow. That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing those!

That's the spirit!

If you're ordering the Honey Buzz and fish buzzbaits hard in the fall, order twice as many as you think you need. I've been fishing the heck out of mine, and worn out the hollow shaft that holds the blade to the wire on two of mine, rendering them useless. This is probably due to a few things: 1. The shear amount of time I'm using them. 2. Constantly tuning them for optimal noise. 3. Clacking them alongside concrete bridge pilings. Simply put, they wear out and break after abuse. Mine lasted 1.5 months of hard fishing. They draw some great strikes. Fish do still miss them completely. I have yet to have a bass or northern throw the hook. I've had people stop in their tracks looking around to see where the heck that "jackhammer" noise is coming from, only to figure out it's me and then stand there for 5-10 minutes watching me fish. It's comical to fish them around urban areas and see people's reactions.

Good comments Joe. Yep, going a lot and being in shape and used to water dynamics, the limitations of your craft and yourself make a huge difference! Especially when planning and budgeting your time.

Looks great Jonn. Thanks for sharing this. Have you tried the 'Shadalicious' tails by Strike King? They work great on your swim jigs. Kevin was tossing a big one and it looked like a friggin' trout swimming back to the 'yak. He caught a lot of big smallmouth on it.

I've had a lot of great upstream outings going pretty far up the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. Comparatively, those are much larger rivers than the Dupe. You can find nice wide pools that are fairly slow and easy to paddle through. The biggest factor on wider areas is wind.

Awesome! Nice job guys! Thanks to all who helped out and those who attended. BIG thanks to John Loebach for organizing it.

It depends on your tenacity and how badly you want to explore and catch fish. If you think you can do it, you will.

Not the be-all, end-all, or "right" way to do anything, but info based on my experiences and stuff that works for me... If you have a decent kayak that tracks well, an upstream outing is a nice way to go. With the nose pointed directly into the current, you can make several casts at your target before having to dip the paddle to keep position. My tandem works out particularly well for this, especially when I have Kevin or my son Grant in the front. I am heavier and do all the paddling from the back. I feel like the kayak is very balanced at that point and it holds position very well. Now if Jonn comes with me, he is about as heavy or heavier than I am, and I expend a lot more energy moving us around. If one guy gets snagged and I have to turn the boat or completely change position to retrieve the snag, it can be tough in current! A whole day of that can be taxing. Another big advantage of an upstream outing is that there's no car dropoff needed. Even if you have a float partner and second car, you still save the dropoff time. This can be critical when trying to take advantage of first light. Love that morning mist and the sound of a topwater explosion. That, and so much water ahead to explore! When going upstream, just take your time, line up the nose of the kayak with your targets, and pepper away. You'll be presenting the bait coming downstream as it would normally be traveling in current, and draw some vicious strikes. This is especially important (and advantageous) in the Dupe when the eel grass is thick. While traveling upstream, you can see the clear lanes in the eel grass and work a bait downstream through them. Even if you're hitting the grass, you don't pickup as much because you're already working through the natural direction of the grass in the flow of the current. When a guy is coming downstream in a watercraft and slinging, 75% of the time they are probably going to be bringing baits across that eel grass. Slow, stealth, no anchor. Have you ever been drifting downstream and come upon a "hole" or clearing mid-river that you didn't know was there? By the time you spot it, it's really too late to fish it, and the last thing you see are all the big smallmouth spooking out of it? Traveling slowly upstream alleviates that ... IF you take the time to pay attention to the cues the river is providing. If you need extra time to work an area, just move to shore and put the nose of your kayak on a log, grass pile-up or shore itself. Just be stealth. Take some time to fan-cast the area, then back out and continue. You'll figure out all kinds of tricks that'll help your comfort and increase your catches if you don't think of floats as only downstream point A to point B adventures.

Our latest Smallmouth Magazine lists a central region outing under "Upcoming Events"... September 20 (Saturday) 7am Vermilion River Wade Fishing Meet at the Pontiac Wendys PM Dana Lee for more details or with questions. I've attached the full page of Upcoming Events in PDF format here.

Hello and welcome. While I'm not a fly fisherman, I frequented the Orvis store quite a bit when I worked on Ohio Street in downtown Chicago. It was a welcome break from the concrete jungle and I always had fun browsing around!

Tom those spots you hit on the Rock might have been fished a day before and many of the big bass that setup there may have been sore-mouthed, some even kept. No doubt you were in fishy locations under Eugene's guidance and were presenting the right offerings. That's what I read into it. I'll bet another time you'd connect just fine.

I throw the same stuff I've been throwing all year. Soft-plastic crayfish imitator on a slider head, spinnerbait, swim jig, buzzbait, Super Spook Jr. After a period of stable weather you can pretty much count on some good topwater action -- at least early and late. That's always fun to take advantage of, even if you encounter a few heartbreakers that throw the hook. Some years I've found a crayfish crankbait to be super productive throughout September and into October. Where I fish is typically determined by studying the USGS river gauges and from what I've experienced in past years. I tend to favor more push to get fish holding along textbook areas: pilings; sea walls; timber; rock; breaks, etc. so they are very easy to read and to catch. I'm not a fan of plying low, clear water with search baits. Sure I'll do it, but I don't prefer it. I'd rather spot hop looking for the next easy target. Of course, once I determine an area to target based on flow, what I throw is dependent on the features such as clarity, depth, type of substrate and structure, etc. Just getting to the river is half the battle. If you tell yourself you aren't that good at it, you're less likely to get out and try. Block some days off on the calendar, hit it hard, and you'll learn.

That thing is pure evil!

Got the Prairie Rivers Network newsletter last week and read the article. Sounds like a nightmare. PDF here, article starts on page 4: http://prairierivers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Summer-2014-newsletter.pdf

He he. I can confirm that. Never wiped out completely but had a few "slides" down banks that were kinda scary. Got lucky.

I got the Gray Ghost wading boots from LLBean. They are studded. Love 'em. They are on sale now and LLBean has a great warranty. http://m.llbean.com/product.html?&page=gray-ghost-wading-boots#63708 I'm on my third year with them. They have held up well. I rinse them with freshwater after each wade and put them upside down to drip dry. Felts are nice too. Have had 'em and liked 'em. Kinda diggin' the studs though. Plus you sound bad-ass walking down bike paths and such with 'em on.

Every time there is some major natural event, i.e., drought, hard freeze, hot spell, big flood ... the sky is falling. Nature is resilient and adapts. Last night at the Dupe, I had to keep nudging my son to "concentrate on the bigger ones" as he was giddy and watching the schools of 20+ 2"-4" smallmouth following his lure all the way up to the kayak.

Why would you need to "reply" and change any settings? Why not just click on the "Quote" button to quote a post?

When you are logged in and reading a post, on the right-hand side beneath each post there is an active "MultiQuote" and "Quote" button side by side. If you mouse over the buttons without clicking on them, a small popup will explain their features. I have written them below for those on tablets: MultiQuote allows you to select multiple posts across multiple topics, then reply to them all at once. Quote allows you to reply directly to a particular post. Also, within the group of BBCode feature icons, there is a little "thought bubble" icon, which allows you to manually create a quote. It is to the lower right of the "smiley" icon. If you do not see the group of icons, click the "More Reply Options" button before replying to a post. The top left icon within the feature set allows you to toggle between BBCode and RTE mode. (it looks like a switch) If you do not see the feature icons lit, you are in RTE mode, so click the toggle switch to active BBCode mode and use the features. There are also "Help" topics explaining how to use the various forum features here: http://illinoissmallmouthalliance.net/forums/index.php?app=core&module=help

Can be quirky on the latest IE for me. Works solid in Safari on iPad / iPhone and on Chrome (Win). Try Chrome or Firefox.

Thanks Kip. That was me. Inquiry http://illinoissmallmouthalliance.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=12038&p=83342 Trip Report http://illinoissmallmouthalliance.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=12059&p=83499

For me, any time is a good time to throw topwater. I don't buy any theories about less numbers, less size, etc. and just chalk up crummy outings as just that. They won't all be winners. And then BAM!!!! Joz posts pics of a few big ones from the same water...

Nice. Great hobby.

That's great Tom. Congrats and nice catch!