Mark K

Would that make it harder to net the fish?

Not to be dumb, but why is it called the "Early Show" ? that's been plaguing me. Hopefully it's not stupidly obvious.

It was moving pretty fast - riffly water and you could not see the fish. I think that even if you initially spook some, if you hang still they will come back. .

I got a chance to fish exactly this way, with all this stuff, but not with Bob. You would be suprised how close you can catch a fish, I was shocked. Caught a fish with the Tenkara rod, which was fun at first but for me it took seemingly forever to get the fish in, which was like...12", but if you do it often I think there is probably a technique to it. My friend let me use his 5wt which was a hell of a nice rod and rigged with a that little Keitech jig, I like that rod a lot more. 20 something years ago Bob told me about how he liked to fish soft plastics on a flyrod. Which I thought made sense but was odd, since he tied such really amazing flies. That little Keitech on a tiny jig looks so incredible I doubt that it is possible to tie anything with better action. No BS a couple times I had to take a double take...is that a real minnow?

Henry's is so Chicago. We love going there, when my kids were little they were fascinated with the big containers of "crabs" . You got to love the bait menu http://www.henryssports.com/bait-menu.html Great that were so prepared for this record.

Most of the fishing boards that I see have pretty low traffic. Most people go to Facebook and other anti-social media for their viewing of arms length fish pictures and other fake news. Did you catch the line in the article where the biologist says you don't need to hold that fish out. LOL I don't know how you would police something like that, seems like it would be easy to cheat. I think there are bigger bass than this in the lake, they are just hard to catch and it's what makes this totally cool happening from shore, especially sweetened by it happening to a regular dude, not some body with a $60K boat. The fact that he a 7lb bass alive is freaking incredible. It's a great story, makes me want to start fishing the lakefrfront more. I saw a photo- a DNR cop showed me of a smallmouth a guy had in a livewell about to release. This was on the lake. It was enormous, I think it was bigger than this one and the guy was not shoving it into the lens. The cop told him it was probably the state record and he was within his rights to keep it. He released it and was not interested. Which is fine, you don't really have anything to gain.

Dale bowman did an excellent write up. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/10/15/20916246/joe-capilupo-catches-illinois-record-small I saw a video of it being released today and it was in a cooler looking reasonably shit kicking. Holy cow, a shore fisherman tageting bass, caught and released alive, the state record. What a great fish story.

I have been pulling that or a similar pointy little !@#$ out of my shoes for a really long time. It's amazing how many can accumalete in your shoes. if you wade in sneakers, which I do probably tend to notice them more. but good point about not transferring them.

Woo Daves was the only one that targeted smallies exclusively as I remember. His bag was 14 fish at 27lbs. Under a 2 lb average. You constantly hear about giant fish in Lake Michigan, yet you really don't see or at least I don't see many people catching them. Here is Ike downtown

Okay so 15 years. That's my point. This was a hard fought battle and I am so glad to see this wasn't an "accident" fish. With all the talk over how big lake michigan SMB are, you would think it would not have taken this long. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/3/27/18444327/finding-a-weigh-certified-scale-and-record-fish-around-the-chicago-area Dale starts that 2019 article out. I still think the Illinois-record smallmouth bass will be caught on the Chicago lakefront. But then I’ve thought that for nearly 20 years. That second guy I know..sort of.. He is one of my nephew's friends and a good and very nice guy. I was pretty certain he was going to break the record since he works his ass off for it. If you go out on the lake in a boat where the bottom is not coated in algae it's coated with sandpaper and razor blades so dragging a jig on the bottom means slowly cutting your line. It's really that bad, the bottom will cut 10 lb braid like butter. Pretty cool though, that while it would be perfectly legal and reasonable to keep that fish weigh it, mount it, eat it.... whatever that both guys went thru pretty great lengths to keep it alive and release it... just out of effin' respect and nuthin' else.

I don't remember it being catch and release but I could be wrong. it's at least been since 2012 (the last reg guide I could find on line), 1 over 21". Which was 7 years ago. Fishing Lake Michigan for smallies is hard. When they had the Classic here in '01 , I don't think there were any really big fish caught.

There is a pic of it on a certified scale. Cool. https://www.facebook.com/groups/188766751780168/

This goes back to 2015. I don't know how this panned out. https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/ct-sta-lockport-dragonfly-st-0705-20150703-story.html

Part of it. The thing is that they take 5 years to reach adulthood from larva. so their survival rate is not so good. They are raising the larva in the lab then releasing them in addition they are raising the crawdads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekX5ZNbAytI

https://www.dupageforest.org/blog/crayfish-help-hines-emerald-dragonfly https://www.fws.gov/Midwest/endangered/insects/hed/pdf/HED5YearReviewMay2013.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C5ORVv5Wi4

I am posting this in the Conservation section because even though this doesn't have any real direct SMB cnnection..... This area in question is the exact site of, in the Chicago area- documented- physical contribution to some sort of conservation event. So this was just east of Lemont Road. It was where I learned about Water Willow and I met Bob Rung. Only 7 guys showed up, Mike Quigley who brought a boat with and was pretty much more useful than anybody, Norm came out and chipped in but he worked 2nd shift and had to understandably split and..... Me. The budget was pretty low at the time we provided a cooler of beverages. I never got to know Bob all that well, and he always refered to me as... one of the seven and was really, really skeptical about fishing clubs etc. if you don't already know this, there is a federal and state protected dragonfly. It only occurs in 4 states and it's rare in all of them. Here in Illinois it only is found in the DesPlaines river. Right there. I knew about the dragonfly. There was a big stink put up about the I355 extension (south of I55) which pretty much sits right in the middle of the territory. What I did not know about the dragonfly was this relationship to a crawdad, pointed out to me in this article by a co-worker: http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2019/Crayfish-Saving-Dragonflies/ I believe the Urban Stream Research Center would be the people who raised the clams a couple years ago on the Dupe- the Mack Road planting/ clam release. So I am throwing out a few ideas (short of hypothesis) As I understand it, the worst thing about rusty crayfish is that they are big crawdads with humungous claws, they displace native species and because they are such a badass crawdad are less likely to be eaten natives, that the latter is more likely to be eaten Certain snakes, I knew winter in crayfish burrows one is the massasauga, the marsh rattlesnake. Non existent here anymore. Kirklands snake. I never saw one.

I am not sure about the Fox, but along the I55...what do they call it, Illinois Heritage Corridor crazy huge-ass-warehouses are going up at an insane rate. I hope there are some checks in place to deal with all that water that will be displaced. When I see just how much water comes off my house, which size-wise is like comparing a paramecium to whatever Eric caught today, it has to be a colossal amount of water and it's hard to imagine how.

Was this public property ?

Very cool soft plastic. Much larger than any real live helgie I've ever seen (and I fished with them a lot). By the time a hellgramite gets anywhere near the 3" mark they are making their way out of the water. By the third year they crawl up on a bank and burrow under rocks, form sort of a cuccoon and then transform into a Dobsonfly. The head/thorax portion is thicker than the abdomen and it is almost as if this bait were designed to use with a 1/8 oz keeper hook. It's very durable. I caught 8 smallies, foot long ones, with the same one and it's still good. The bait with the keeper hook looks specatacular on the bottom. I got the olive flavor and it blends with the bottom so perfect that the shine from hook sticks out like a sore thumb. I think this might be a good one to whacky rig too. I am not convinced that fish think it's a hellgramite but it looks very natural on the bottom. However I caught everything with a fast twitchy retrieve so much for that https://www.tacklehd.com/products/hd-hellgrammite If there is any disappointment, I saw this video and was expecting more action. The ones I have are stiffer than this. https://youtu.be/GhNEKZp5NM0

also in the news.... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/travel/alaska-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge.html https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-09-12/interior-finalizes-plan-to-open-alaskas-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-to-oil-drilling

Done. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760203456/epa-makes-rollback-of-clean-water-rules-official-repealing-2015-protections

I am going to try it Saturday or Sunday. I also tied one the 6th one down in the link below. My son and I were catching enormous bluegills with it in this really clear pond in Wisconsin. http://www.bigriverfly.com/p/fly-bin.html

The mental picture is revolting.

I don't think it's a good idea to just dump an enormous fish carcass on the bank, or in the water if you are to feed anything it would likely be rats or racoons and you would probably unleash a ton of bacteria that normally wouldn't be there. It's also depending on how you interpret the rules in a lot of states to be illegal. Imagine if a grocery store decided to dump it's expired meat in the water most people would be outraged.

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