Kevin Dells

Jason we have never meet but let me say! Glad to meet you boy! I am one of the guys that targets big smallies as well. When everybodyelse has a smaller lure tied on,im throwing wood. Big wood! I truly believe big lure= big fish. The guys up here often give me crap for the lures i throw.(such as the Chug Bug! Which at first some people gave me crud about!,Now everybody has one!) But since i have racked up some very impressive days on the water when everybody else was shut down,i laugh back. I do have many days when i get shut out and their all catching fish but hey thats fishing and my stubborn brain! As far as believing your story, i really do. Especially a Lake Michigan smallie,the forage base is awesome on Lake Michigan how could they NOT grow that big! This sounds like a good challenge though, because i still believe and many do that the State record may come from our tiny river, the Kishwaukee. Don't know why but this river shows us many smaller fish and every once in awhile a huge smallie. I beleive the hog from the Kish has yet to be caught! Either way. Congrads to you!

Just read the Algonquin Spillway part,don't worry about slapping the guy he's probably already half dead,he just dosen't know it yet! Nasty! Why would you eat fish from the Fox,especially that area!

Mark, Reach across the cutting board and slap that guy for me! Funny i was at Gander in Rockford yesterday picking up some brighter lures for the muddy Kish. Figured since i was there i would pick up my wisconsin liscense. While standing in line for the liscense i said quite loudly"i wish Illinois would raise their liscense fee's and hire more CPO's!" Funny part is everybody standing behind me agreed! So why don't they? If they doubled the price of an Illinois fishing liscense to 26 dollars with the hopes of getting a few more CPO's i would gladly pay.

Well it's finally gone wether or not it was poisin Ivy. Took three baths in Aveeno Oatmeal solution three straight day in a row and bam it's gone! Up until that point not a whole lot was touching it. Thanks guys for all the reply's!

Been there done that, it's slowly working. I didn't even think poison Ivy would be up so early,jeez were just getting grass this week. I ticks me off because for years i could roll around in it and never had a problem but from what i hear your body does become subcepptable to it off and on through out life. Saving pennies for the breathables against my will, i hate wearing waders! Thanks for the reply's guys

So this must be my year to have the ivy itch! I have been fishing the rivers for years and have never even gotten a scracth of this stuff. This year iv'e been out twice and one of the trips i come home with a severe case of it starting at my pants line and traveling all the way up to half my back. Are there any old remedies for this or is a 50 dollar trip to see the doc in my forecast? Any suggestions guys,this is bad! I can see im going to have to wear raingear all summer because im not stopping fishing!

Skunkland up this way Jonn, Hang in there man! Your not missing anything.

Count me in Rich! Potowanamie's looking really good but lot's more work to be done! Maybe if we can catch Terry in person we can talk about some things we would like to see done and get approval. What do you say boys, a little bush planting and then some fishing?

Guys im very sorry i missed the Blowout this year. My Haunted House convention in Chicago was moved a week earlier this year to the same weekend as the Blowout,hence not being able to make it. The are moving the convention to Las Vegas next year and that i will not be attending so i will be back at the Blowout next year. Put me down as a vollunteer now for next year. Sound like a great time had by all!

Paul when you called me two weeks ago you should have mentioned the fishing show! I would have came down for awhile, you only mentioned the Blowout which obviously i was busy that night but the fishing show i could have made. My bad i need to read these boards more!

Cool, they gave 350,000 $ for more land along the Kish. Sounds greedy on my part to want to buy all the land along the Kish but i know this little river very well, it can't take high impact construction like it already has. To small a river to take all the spilloff it has already seen from the few contratcors they have already let in. Kudo's to the illinois government for once! Im still trying to figure out why they don't just claim it Wild and Schenic and put it on the list of No Touch policy. Only two groups looking to buy it, the government for parks or the developers who want to build along a farm land flood plain, to me it's a No Brainer! This river is a perfect cantidate for a few primitive campsites along it's lenght. Reminds me of the Flambeau and the Manitowish rivers in Wisconsin,both have a few primitive sites and both are awesome weekend canoe/fishing rivers. Why not the Kish? Rich do you think this is an idea we could plug to Terry Hannon? I would give my summer building primitive campsites,pit johns and tent pads as well as doing more tree removal in Kirkland. I walked a mile down last week and theres still NO WAY your going to get a canoe through that crud!

Not nessecarily (sp) outhouse material unless you take your laptop into the can with you, but Paul Trybul posted this website on the Northwest forums and since i checked it out i have been back to read more reports everyday. www.BWCA.com Great trip reports along with great photos as well, if you haven't checked it out give it a shot,great site!

Well in fact i was just sitting upon the throne a little while ago reading the Outdoor Notebook,Bob Maculius's article about Fred Bear was great. Telling the story about how a good hunter stalks his trophy buck instead of sitting in a stand waiting. A lot of places along the Kish i often stand on deer intersections wondering how the whole city lays out. Which trail to the water,which trail to the food and bed down area? Good reading. John's winter smallie article was good too, im looking foward to his continuance on the Float and Fly method. And when the smow is butt deep a good Sigurd Olsen book will always warm you up!

In a state like Oklahoma or Wyoming type states im sure there are a few really pristine streams and my vote would be no as well, leave something like that alone. It's to bad they can't declare it a wilderness area so it has to be left untouched but as they stated it has landowners soooo,to late!

An article in In Fisherman a few years back did a study on a mid sized stream in Wisconsin. They tagged a dozen smallies and watched the migration of all 12. If i remember right 4 stayed within a quarter mile of their original spot over the winter months, 3-4 moved nearly ten miles and a few migrated over 50 miles but almost all of them returned back to their original spot in the spring. Do they migrate,Yes. How far? From what this test showed a lot further then i would have imagined. Im sure it's different on every body of water also.