Terry Dodge

The "tipsy" was not all that bad. I believe putting the seat in the lower setting would be a good idea on longer upstream paddles.

Please note the location change. This event has moved about a mile south of Blackhawk Springs F.P. to Kishwaukee River Forest Preserve. Kishwaukee River F.P. is located where Blackhawk Rd. & Mulford Rd. meet on the west side of the bridge. Enter the park and follow the road to the very back of the park where the road will circle you back around. We are at the circle @ Fort Vincennes Shelter House, so don't head back out of the park. http://www.wcfpd.org/assets/pdf/trailmaps/Kishwaukee_River.pdf Sorry for the location change. My bad.

Not worried about members on the list that can no longer make it. Helps to plan for extra. Just worried about people not on the list that might show.

He is the list I thus far. I f you don't see your name on here at it should be, let me know. RSVP List.... 1) Ed B. 2) Tim U. 3) Jim Wright & (#25) 4) terrydodge 5) Jude 6) Stuart Fienberg & 7) Guest 8) Sam Harmon 9) Jim Woodstock & (#21) 10) Guest 11) Jim S. 12) Pat Dodge 13) Tim Goodman & ? 14) Paul T 15) Paul T Sr. 16) Tom Wesseln 17) Ben K. 18) Mike G. 19) Bart & 20) Guest 21) Guest (Jim Woodstock) 22) Chris Meade 23) Art Alvarado 24) Scott F. 25) Guest (Jim Wright) 26) Bill K.

Amended.

Scott puts us at 24 ISA members that have RSVPed. If anybody rides along with Scott be sure to also RSVP. Thinking about maybe giving Jude a promotion up to eggs from toast. That would make him the Eggman, goo goo g'joob.

I received an email from Friends of The Kishwaukee River that said they were going to be updating their Kiosk at Baumann Park. Last year they had the ISA yellow Catch & Release sign and a picture of me with one of my Kishwaukee River smallmouth catches displayed in the Kiosk. Would any of you NW Region members like to submit a pic of you holding a Kishwaukee River smallmouth? If so let me know and send me the pic and I'll get it to them. Jude - Size of smallmouth doesn't really matter so please feel free to consider.

Did you cut them plastic thingies off of a used tube? I like it.

I will name my Coosa "Brandy".

WOW! Took the Coosa out today for a few hours. Did a little fishing with no luck but the whole idea of today was to get the Coosa wet and hopefully not me. I put in at Oak Ridge Forest Preserve in Winnebago County and paddle upstream for a bit. At first the Coosa felt a little tipsy but I got use to it pretty fast. Today was my first time ever to sit in a kayak so I was kind of expecting it to feel tipsy anyway. The paddle upstream went nice and smooth, not too hard but not as easy as I was hoping it might be. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rank it a 7 going upstream but I do expect that number to go up as I believe I need to develop a good paddling technique. I was a surprised at how the Coosa kept gliding upstream when I would stop paddling for a short break. I paddled upstream for about a mile until I hit a shallow area that was tough to paddle in. I was happy with the way it went upstream at this point so I spun around and floated back downstream about a half mile past my put in and take out point and then came back up and took out. I did stand in it for a few minutes just to see what that was like. Tipsy. I'll wait for the water to warm a bit before I goof around with that. The Coosa looks real nice sitting on a sandbar. I am completely happy with this purchase. It can only get better. Got home and washed her all off. It's going to be a fun year.

Check.

Bart & guest. Got it.

Nice. Is that the 10 footer? Hope you have a great time in it this year and many years to come.

Silly fish.

Wish I could learn to take good pics. Here's my Kil' Bug fly named after Kilbuck Creek.....

That's the plan. I don't want to learn as I go. I want to put that thing in and test my boundaries right of the bat so when I do start float fishing I'll feel comfortable with how I can move and what I can do.

We will drag it down as soon as I think the water temp has warmed up enough for me to take a spill. Thanks for offering to help an old man out.

Attention: Small change to the plan. I failed to get the shelter house reserved @ Blackhawk Springs F.P. I now have a shelter house reserved on the eastside of Kishwaukee River F.P. which is only about a half mile down the road from Blackhawk Springs F.P. so this small change really shouldn't be too big of a deal. Sorry. I'll try to shoot a PM to people who have RSVP.

I heat the eye of the hook and just slide the plug on. Once it's in place I then start tying on my thread about 3/4 of the way down on the plug. The ear plug and thread cinches right up against the hook shank. I then Heat a razor knife and trim away the ear plug material that is not going to be used. I then tie on my tail feathers followed by the pip cleaner legs that I wined around the shank once and then wrapping with thread as you would Clouser eyes. Simple. I added the pipe cleaner legs because in the past I have had trouble with the ear plug popper wanting to roll to one side or the other. I have a lifetime supply of ear plugs at work that's why I screw around with them so much. Need to find the perfect formula.

Ear plug popper with added pipe cleaner legs to be adjusted for balance.

http://www.rrstar.com/blogs/kevinhaas/x711935606/Winnebago-County-Forest-Preserve-leaders-pay-set-at-130K

This is an RSVP event. We need to start putting together a list of those of you that would like to attend. For those of you who have already contacted myself or Ed please be sure to post here again that you are coming, we want to get this list right to make sure we have the proper amount of breakfast type food on hand. Hope this weather breaks before 4/27/13. River water levels. (http://weather.hamwe...auge/PRYI2.html) Maps of the Kishwaukee River that show all parks and access areas will be available. See the shelter house @ http://www.wcfpd.org...khawk-springs/# Please RSVP here now.

Thanks for the pics, Jim. Here are a couple more snap shots taken by new ISA member, Collin Belle

WOW! What a GREAT turn out. About 50 people showed up. We received many compliments afterwards on how informative and how well executed the seminar was. Many asked questions about local rivers and smallmouth fishing techniques, also if we were going to be doing another seminar. We signed up 2 new members with a possible third that I sent ISA info home with. Rich, Paul and Tim did an awesome with their presentations and we also got some help from newly signed up member Collin on kayak fishing, Jim S. was also there to help out with some of the grunt work and picture taking. THANKS to all who showed up and helped out for this huge success of a seminar put on by the ISA. A big thanks to John Guth at Ken-Rock Community Center for setting this thing up. We'll need to do this again.