Scott Ferguson

Orvis is having a special event at the Yorktown store on July 25th from 11-4. The festivities will include free beer, free food, as well as seminars from Chuck Hawkins and Nick Volk. There will also be special savings throughout the store. Here is a flyer describing the event.

Lakes Advantages 1. Easier boat control 2. Not effected by heavy rains. 3. Able to fish longer without getting tired from the comfort of a boat. Disadvantage 1. Summer time, when the water heats up, sends fish deeper making them more difficult to locate. 2. Not many fishable smallmouth lakes in Northern Illinois. 3. Usually requires a boat Rivers Advantages 1. Good smallie rivers close to home. 2. Fishing gets better in summer, fish can't go deep. 3. (See Paul's post above) Disadvantages 1. Heavy rains can makes rivers unfishable or limit safe wading. 2. Moving around on rivers is more difficult. Hard to move up stream in a water craft, hard to control boat in current, wading in deep, fast, rocky water can be dangerous. Both lakes and rivers have their advantages and disadvantages. If you have the time and a boat, fishing lakes can expand your options. A couple of weeks ago, when the rivers here were almost unfishable, I went to a Minnesota Lake where I caught a few hundred bass, numbers I could never have gotten if I'd stayed home. For the rest of the summer, fishing in that same lake would not be able to produce the size or numbers I could get if I stuck to rivers.

Except for topwater baits, I almost never use crankbaits anymore. Mainly, because I hate dealing with extra treble hooks that are being flung around by an angry smallmouth. For me, the secret of plastics is to slow down. That can be a difficult adjustment to make after the fast retrieves of crankbaits and spinnerbaits. Work the baits slowly keeping them in the prime spots as long as possible. Keep trying, once you have some success, your confidence in the baits will increase and you'll do even better.

Unless that truck cab is on Park District land, and if it's the one I'm thinking about, it isn't, you'd be trespassing if you attempted to remove the old truck. I agree it probably shouldn't be there, but you better have permission from the land owner before trying to move it.

I drive past a few in that area that are still intact. Our new signs are much more durable.

If I were fishing for muskies, I might consider 80 pound flouro, but I'm fishing for smallmouth. I don't think you could even thread it through the eyelet of the hooks I use. When using line or leaders that heavy, you need to use crimping sleeves and additional hardware that would destroy the slow, horizontal fall of the senko. Being so small and thin and flexible, this steel coated leader has almost no effect on the presentation. It is a lot easier to tie knots with than heavy flouro or mono. It is springy, that's why I was using a vise and hemostats. John, there is a lot of pressure on walleyes, muskies and panfish. Not so much for bass, at least in the spring. It does picks up during the summer.

Although we don't see many pike or musky in our rivers where I fish for smallmouth. I also spend time in Minnesota and Wisconsin lakes and rivers where toothy fish can be pretty common. I used to just accept the occasional bite off of my sinking stick baits as part of the cost of fishing but I'm no longer comfortable knowing that a nice muskie or a pike is swimming around with a hook and a hunk of plastic stuck in his jaw that could keep him from feeding. I'd also like to land a few more of those fish as well. My typical hand made steel leaders that I use with cranks and spinners, even the small ones, screw up the presentation when attached to an unweighted senko type bait. My solution was to try some knottable, nylon coated, stainless steel leader material in 20 lb test. The wire is no thicker than 15 or 17 lb test mono. I tie the wire directly to my hook, leave around 5 or 6 inches, then tie a loop to tie my main line (8 lb fireline). I just came back from a trip in Wisconsin and I have to report that it worked very well. No bite offs and I landed pike that would have bitten me off for sure. If there was any negative reaction from the fish I didn't notice it. I got 95 fish (large and smallmouth and some northerns) the day I used the leaders extensively. I wish I'd brought more leaders with me as I did lose the ones I made up to a couple of snags and some in trees that jumped up and grabbed a cast or two! I made up a lot more in preparation of my next trip! The wire is not cheap. I got some at Cabela's in the fly fishing department. 16 feet was I think $12.99. I have made a total of 28 leaders with it. They also are not easy to tie. I used a fly tying vise and hemostats for assistance which helped minimize waste and overcame my big fingers. I know many of you would rather lose a few hooks and plastics than risk getting fewer bites by having a leader, but these are so small, & thin with no additional hardware, that I don't believe affects the fishing much at all. If you are getting tired of getting bit off, loosing fish and having to retie, you should give this leader material a try. The wire I used is by AFW, but you can also get the Tyger Wire which is a little more expensive.

You might try Reed's Canoe rentals. www.reedscanoetrips.com/

They probably have turned off if they are spawning, and they should be by now. Bass don't feed while they are spawning. After the spawn, the males will guard the nest and chase intruders away but they are not feeding. Around 2 weeks after the females lay their eggs, they should go back to feeding.

It depends on the water you are talking about. In Illinois, if the waterway was declared navigable by the Army Corps of Engineers, like the Fox, Illinois, or Kankakee, you can use the waterway wherever. Smaller flows like the Apple, DuPage, Vermillion and others, people have deeds that say they might own all or part of the way across the river. So you may be trespassing. You could get arrested. Several years ago, there were many fights along the Apple where property owners were stringing wire across the river to keep canoeists out. Up there, a truce was worked out and the canoeists were tolerated but they are not allowed to stop and get out on private property. The US Supreme court says that any waterway that can be paddled at anytime of the year is navigable and therefore property of the state. The problem is, going to court to fight the state of Illinois to change their view and to convince the property owner that their deed is invalid. That is an expensive fight that so far no one has been willing to challenge. Every state has different laws concerning water access. For more information concerning river access rights go to; http://www.nationalrivers.org/

The material of the new signs is the same as those we put up 9 years ago which are a little faded but undamaged. Metal signs are often stolen and sold for scrap.

New sturdier signs were just made and we will soon be putting together an outing for getting the broken and missing signs replaced. Thanks for the update on locations needing replacements.

I believe for certain bass that see the same baits over and over learn to ignore them. If you've ever been on a southern impoundment like Bull Shoals Lake or one of the dozens of other reservoirs, you've seen the endless parade of boats spaced every 200 yards all the way around the lake. Most of them are throwing spinnerbaits, crankbaits or plastics. By 10 o'clock in the morning every fish in the shallow water zone has seen dozens of baits. If you are throwing the same thing as everybody else you don't have much of a chance. In Japan, their waters are some of the most heavily pressured waters on earth and success depends on showing the fish something they haven't seen before. Japanese bait companies have hundreds of new lures every year to keep up with the demand for different baits. As stream fishermen the pressure is considerably less even in heavily populated areas like here near Chicago. Most of the fish we are fishing for don't see as many baits as in some bodies of water so they are not as conditioned to ignore popular baits.

A few of the USGS water level sites also report on the water temp but I haven't seen a local one that does.

Fish do become accustomed to seeing the same baits over and over again and they stop being effective. I know a lake where when Senkos first came out and for a few years after, they were the magic bait. Now, the bass ignore them there. Tomorrow, another new bait will show up that the fish cannot ignore because they look like food to the fish and it isn't something they associate with danger, yet. Rapalas, in-line spinners, Big O's, plastic worms, there are a lot of baits out there that when they were new were outfishing everything else. When plastic worms first came out, there was a lot of talk about making them illegal because they caught too many fish. Obviously, no bait is any good if you don't put it where the fish are and location is the most important factor in catching fish. But there are baits that at times, will out fish everything else you throw that day. Having a lot of different baits to throw and choose from is also part of the fun of fishing. I use senko type lures the majority of the time because at least for now, they nearly always catch fish. I do get bored throwing the same lure, day after day so I like a change of pace once in a while.

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One aspect that I did not see mentioned in the article was if there were any tracking studies done in conjunction with the research. I believe I've read other studies where bass were radio tagged & tracked, that some fish live their entire lives in deeper water where they may be more difficult for fishermen to locate and catch. What percentage of the bass that were never caught lived in the deeper sections of the lake where they may have never seen a lure? Since the entire study was not shown in the article. I wonder if location of the bass was taken into consideration?

It's back up now.

If a "Colorado" pontoon is a one man, personal pontoon, I have a one of those which is a great fishing platform but you can't row it upstream. You could use a trolling motor but the DuPage is too shallow and weedy for that to operate well.

For walleyes, a ball head jig and 4 inch PLASTIC twister tails (not rubber ) in white or yellow are probably one of your best bets followed by crankbaits like shad raps or original rapalas cast or trolled.

In Michigan and Wisconsin where they have daily fees for state parks, they only have people stationed at the entrances of the most popular parks. In smaller parks, you put your parking fee in an envelope, then put the receipt in your window. State residents usually buy an annual sticker.