slonezp

On the advice of Jon, of Jon's bait shop, we went to Pondo which is the largest of the strip mine lakes. No shortage of fish in the lake but there was no size to any of them. Water temp was 80 and it was a tad windy. We had to hide and couldn't fish any offshore structure where I was marking fish. We caught a ton of gills, redear sunfish, channel cats, and maybe 10 or 12 bass. Biggest bass may have been 13". All on live bait and wacky rigs.

I would recommend a dedicated battery. I'm running my Garmin SI unit off the TM battery in the pond hopper. I've run graphs long enough to know what is what...most of the time. I have a choke on the graph and I still get interference.

Taking dad and the pond hopper to Mazonia tomorrow. Monster Lake to be specific. Haven't fished here before, minus last week, from shore. Anyone here have any advice?

Doesn't sound like a hamstring to me if it's isolated to the knee. If I catch any fish tomorrow I'll dedicate the first one to you. In the mean time, well wishes and hopefully it's something that's not a big deal.

He's a fantastic storyteller. In my opinion one of the top 3 lyricists alive. Roger Allen Wade and Angry Johnny would be the other 2.

Some crazy stuff. I texted my one and only employee who lives about a mile west of me. I just dropped off a generator. There are huge trees torn apart

Grill is going. Channel 32 is reporting trees down in the neighborhood. Had some real bad lightning and high winds. Rain has stopped and wind is calm

Oh joy! Tornado sirens going off. Guess I have to wait to get the grill started.

I drink a lot of coffee. If it's a tourney day, I do not partake.

Gotta love when spinning reels are held upside down and are reeled in backwards.

So, what about the bird?

Crust is too well done for me. Well doneness should be noticeable in the cheese, not the crust.

If he wasn't with me I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I would have never walked over to see what was making the racket.

Yes and no. I want to know if I can launch the boat on the other lakes without removing the outboard.

I saw that on the regs. The lakes that allow gas motors state "unlimited HP no wake". I just want to know if I drag the pond hopper down there, can I utilize any of the lakes or only utilize the ones that have no HP limits. We were shore fishing the north unit and I haven't been down that way in 10+ years. I was talking to a guy with a 10ft inflatable with electric propulsion. He had a nice sac of big crappies. Also saw a guy in a kayak land a couple decent bass. I didn't think to ask him at the time if he knew the regs. All the other boats I saw were kayaks. Some of the lakes on the south unit allow gas motors on idle. I like the fact that, on a beautiful Saturday, there was almost no one there.

Agree with white baits especially in deep water. Try throwing a fluke on a jig. I've jigged for them on Lake Geneva in depths of 100ft.

Mazonia??? Did some shore fishing at Braidwood and Mazonia today. So I'm reading the boating regs and it looks like all but 3 lakes are electric only. Question I have is, do I need to remove the gas motor to fish the electric only lakes?

I don't care at all for redwing blackbirds but I saved this guys life today. Took the grandson fishing today and I heard some rustling in the reeds. Being the great papa that I am, I told Eric there was a monster in the reeds and it was going to jump out and get him. He was inquisitive and walked over by the reeds and said "He's stuck" The braid was wrapped around both his legs and his wingtip and he was hanging upside down. I cut him out of the reeds and he fell to the ground. Took about another 5 minutes to catch him and cut the rest of the line free. He flew away instantly. Hopefully his legs weren't messed up.

Yes

Lock it up

Because GM is subsidized

Beck had a good population of 1.5-3lb bass25+ years ago. Don't know how it is today. Was a few kayakers out there fishing on Saturday. Seems to be the only way to fish the lake nowadays.

Maybe...

You brought up whitey tighty... We had the Enema bandit here in IL and I will add, there is a boat on my home water called the Enema Bandit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_H._Kenyon