Scott Ferguson

John, now that you've registered on the forums, we hope you'll consider becoming a full ISA member. Dues are only $25 a year. You get 6 issues of our 20 page newsletter and you are invited to join us on outings which are open to paid members only. Your dues also show you are commited to helping us work to improve smallmouth habitat across the state of Illinois.

The Cabela's Master Fishing catalog

Jonn, see if Mike will donate another trip to the Blowout.

Sorry, no. I've fished with Mike and he was the speaker at last year's Blowout. He really knows smallies and he puts his clients on some really big ones. A 4 hour presentation for $49 will provide a great deal of information from a guide who spends most of his time fishing smallies in rivers.

Good work Mike. You desrve the lion's share of the credit.

I have a spool of it that I bought late in the season. I haven't used up the smoke colored Fireline on any of my reels yet so I haven't spooled any up. While it isn't totally clear because of the layers of fibers that make it up, it isn't like regular Fireline that has been painted white either.

Some people who've never used a superline before may not like Fireline Crystal or any other superline for that matter because it is different from mono. Superlines take some getting used to.

I for one do not believe fish know what line is or if they do, I don't care. I will not use mono instead of a braid because fish might be able see the braid. If over time I miss a few fish over line visability, I can live with that.

If I'm wrong about fish reacting negatively to line they can see, using Fireline Crystal should even things up.

Those things had amazing action. I never caught a thing on the one that I had. If I had one now, I KNOW they'd catch northerns.

Chicago spent millions on a drain cover thing several years ago. Only problem was, they clogged up and kept water from getting into the drains. Then the storm water backed up and wound up in everyone's basement. Oops!

Anybody surprised that these baits are $45 each?

12 lures? 11 of mine are some version of a 4" Senko or sinking plastic, and the other is a walk-the-dog type of topwater (could also be a popper). Color or brand of bait is whatever I grab when I stick my hand in my tackle bag.

I never saw anyone as fixated on rodents as Mike C. Get some help man.

True, if the dam was removed that area below the dam may no longer be the same as it was before. Just because the dam may be removed, that is not to say that deeper holes will be filled in afterward. It is the intention of the forest preserve district to increase suitable habitat not reduce it. If a good hole is present there now, I believe they will do their best to keep it.

It is also true that the area above the dam will be changed too. There will no longer be silt covering the bottom, there will be oxygen for the fish to breathe, and smallies and other fish will be able to move upstream. Removing the dam may even open up a few holes that were not there before. There will be more habitat suitable to smallmouth. The more habitat available, the more fish the river can sustain.

Even if one small spot were changed, the improvement of a much larger area of river will more than make up for it.

I've been using cheap Strike King polarized glasses from Wal Mart for years. Most of the pricey sunglasses have curved lenses but due to something with my eyes, that curve adds distortion. The flatter lenses on the inexpensive glasses work very well for me.

It's funny, polarization is to me, the most important feature on sunglasses and few of the most expensive sunglasses you can buy are polarized.

Personnaly, I feel that if a big smallie was left alone and not pressured he would stay in a small area.

I used to have a few "honey holes" that always produced some big fish and I'd return to those spots once every couple of weeks. Now I rarely if ever catch a big fish from those same holes.

Either someone else caught and kept those fish, they just got wise and learned to avoid a big wading fisherman or they moved to a new safer spot. I'll never know for sure.

On a natural lake I fish, we caught the same fish from the same spot at least 3 years in a row (he only had one eye). But we only hit that spot once a year.

There was another good sized bass with a deformed upper mouth that had been caught and photographed at least 3 times in a local river from 3 different spots at least a mile apart within weeks of each other.

So to answer your question, maybe he'll stay, maybe he'll move.

At no time is it ever permissable to use the term "rubber worm".

Man Law #17:

 

No man shall photograph any smallmouth estimated to be under 14" (and subsequently post it on all your favorite fishing forums).

Just tell us about it- we believe you.

Good one Mike!

There have been published reports about the disposal of medicines down drains and how they wind up in our streams because they aren't removed from waste water plants but I haven't been able to locate any.

I would like to have a good report about what's actually in treated water to show people why wet wading is not a good idea at least in rivers where treated water is being released.

I've heard the resaon why the Dupage is usually so clear is that most of the water in the river came from water treatment plants.

In the past I've felt the splash and action of casting a larger bait "overwhelms" these streams and the potential to spook them was high. So...I hit them quick with smaller baits and then move on. The way I normally fish is run and gun, targeting active fish in prime habitat and then moving on if the bite doesn't show up after 6 or 8 casts. If something hits, I'll settle in and fish a spot for a while, but the big fish are usually the 1st or 2nd ones caught out of a hole, and often on the 1st or 2nd cast. It's not uncommon for me to cover two miles of stream wading, skippping over shallow runs with limited cover.

 

Would I still have done better to just stick with the larger baits and held out for the more substantial fish? Maybe plastics are the answer?

 

I gotta be missing something...

Big fish didn't get to be big by being reckless. They are often much more wary and easily spooked. Slow down and cover one mile of stream in the time you may have spent on two miles. Move slower and be more stealthy. In small streams, fish know you're coming long before you get there. When you come to a good spot, stand still for a while and give the fish a chance to drop their guard.

Fish in or very near to the deepest water you can find. Also stay with 4 or 5 inch baits instead of 2 or 3 inches.

Of course there's a chance you won't catch anything at all when you stick with big baits, but when they work...

Another thing is, it might be time to switch to live bait. Again the bigger the better.

These aren't my favorite photos but they are of my favorite river, the Niagra. Although the falls are the big attraction, if you ever visit the area make sure to walk around Goat Island on the American side. The power of the Niagra River before it reaches the falls is amazing.

The river downstream is sqeezed through a narrow gorge creating some major rapids.

For those of you who missed it, the ISA put together a collection of smallmouth articles into a small book called "Strategies for Stream Smallmouth" a few years ago and printed off 100 copies. Almost all of the articles had been printed in the newsletter before, we just compiled them all into one place. Maybe we'll have a few more printed up in a year or two.

It's a little expensive to do a small run. Maybe we can do it as a PDF and make it available as a download off the web site.

Sorry, we sold out of that book quite a while ago.

We were fishing the large (4 to 5 inch) chubs with just a hook and a split shot. We just cast them out into areas that the guide knew usually held big fish. Most of the areas were in 6 to 11 feet of water. Some were in areas that the fish will stay in all winter and sometimes we were fishing in areas of deeper water where current was present that held fish year round. Some were near weedbeds, some near rocks. There was no consistant pattern except that the water was deeper than you might fish in summer.

Thinking about it, I probably might use live bait more in the fall. I seldom use live bait and the guide, Mike Mladenik, says he never uses it except in the fall. In Illinois, I'd probably use a little bit smaller minnows.,

These were pretty big baits. Something you might pick if you were after northerns. The Menominee has a good number of very large bass. I suspect reason we didn't catch a lot of bass but the ones we caught were all large was because of the size of the baits. Our local rivers have fewer numbers of big fish so with smaller baits I'd probably get more fish.

Here's a couple more photos from the UP

My wife Crystal and I went out with fishing guide Mike Mladenik on the Menominee River in WI on Monday September 25. Using red tail chubs, and 5 inch Senkos, we got about 25 to 30 smallies. While the numbers weren't huge, the average size was. The smallest was 15 inches. We had 3 over 19 almost all the rest were 17 or 18. I've never had a day with that many big bass.

This 19.5 incher was caught on my second cast of the day. (The first cast yielded a 17)

Crystal got this 19.

On Thursday, we went back out with Mike Mladenik to a different part of the river, this time above a dam. It was a little slower today. 18 bass. I got 2, 19's, a couple of 18's of the rest, only 3 were less than 16 inches.

I got one fish on a plastic and all the rest were on the chubs. I'm not one for live bait but when the guide says that's what works, who am I to argue. If I'd have stuck with plastics today, I wouldn't have gotten much. I tried several types of plastics even while I had another rod with the bait in the water. The big red tails were the ticket.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we went hiking in the UP. One of the hikes was 10 miles long that took us along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on the Lake Superior shoreline. It was a long hike for two out of shape hikers but the views were spectacular.

Some of these cliffs are 200 feet high. The trail wove along the edge of these cliffs for 4 miles.

I never knew this existed till we got here. Well worth the sore legs and feet.

Try a Case Salty Sinkin Minnow or Salty Sinkin Shad. Fluke style baits that sink like a senko. No weights needed

Since it won't stop raining around here, I'm going up to Wisconsin and try the Menominee River with Mike Mladenik and see if I can catch some of the huge bass he showed us at the Blowout.