I had a meeting in Rensselear last night about watershed planning in the Iroqouis River watershed (Jasper and Newton counties specifically). I decided to drive up and spend the afternoon checking out the feeders, fish scouting, and maybe throwing a tube or two. I was warned by a friend that several of the major tributaries had just been "cleaned." I had an idea what this meant, but I did not expect this:
Slough Creek:
Curtis Creek:
The combination of the meeting topic and the situation on the ground was absolutely absurd. You can't have any type of coordinated watershed effort when surveyors/farmers are allowed to do that. I didn't bother fishing in either of those two creeks, choosing instead to hit up the Iroqouis itself. It's a freakin canal. V-shaped channel, virtually no cover, difficult to wade, thin riparian corridor with low quality trees at best (cottonwoods, sassafrass, sugar maples). Fished for an hour without a sniff.
I originally planned to drive around the Kankakee a little too, but I didn't have the heart; I know it's substantially worse up there.