Shimmer

Good stuff1 I was tweakin a new reel in my yard earlier this year and caught a sparrow on a trick stick =)

Message sent Diawa.

Yeah, they are $8.99 here as well. What a steal!...I guess

It looks look a big channel to me. The reason I say this; I believe I can see black spotted markings on its side Its a little hard to see but channel cat will have a deeply forked tail and that is kind of the way it looks. I catch alot of catfish, but I'm no expert. At any rate, nice fish!

Buzzbaits

I haven't heard any word on the situation since I turned it in, but I also haven't seen the fella' back. I did however notice that what pulled out was replaced to somewhat where it used to be.

R U S T

Any of the Illinois guys or gals tried fishing Lake Bowen in Washington? It's a public lake on 6 acres from what I hear. I'm pretty sure it's heavily fished but a guy told me it holds some nice fish. I just heard about it since moving down here, and apparently it's 3 minutes from my apartment =) If anyone has any information let me know, I'd appreciate it.

Lately the Illinois River has been on fire with bass. We've had a couple people pull 5 and 6 lbers out of local marinas.

Yeah they eat the smaller Asian Carp up. I fish in a private backwater of the Illinois River and when the Asian Carp spawn are back in there it is some of the best fishing I've ever had. Throwing a crank and letting it flutter, just gets hammered.

Kind of like wearing a seat belt its a choice, if you choose not to be ready for the consequences.

Now that they are being commercialy fished and hunted heavy as a sport, the bass population in the Illinois River is becoming healthy again. And actually the bass eat many of the smaller asian carp..but we all know around here they don't stay small for long.

Yeah we have offered multiple times to help him out and trim things back but since nobody fishes it but us on the rare occasion he lets us, he just tells us not to bother. It is pretty frustrating but what can ya do. Anyways we got out there today and he was waiting for us and told us to come back another day that today just wasn't a good day >_>.

Thanks for the input guys, gettin ready to head out there in a few minutes. I know 70-80 sounds pretty ridiculous but the guy who owns it swears up and down thats how deep it is /shrug. Yeah I had a real nice blow up on a frog over the weeds yesterday so I'll give it another try today.

0.o If I caught that fish, I think all of central Illinois would know. I'd be screaming all the way home.

Hey guys I figured with the immense plethera of knowledge here someone may have some good tips for me. Here is the scenario; There is a farm pond where I live that is enormous (forgot to take a picture today). The last time we fished this place was two years ago and it was just beautiful. The old man who owns it spent 2 Mil putting the pond in and stocking it. My friend was actually trespassing, was caught, and given permission for being so respectful. Come to find out this place is so far in the sticks he is the only person who has permission to fish it. He will only let my friend and I go fishing out there maybe four times a year because he dosen't like his fish being stressed. (right?) According to him at the dam it is about 70-80 feet deep. He dosen't allow boats and at his age he can't keep the tall weeds down around the edges so you can only fish from the dam. This place is simply loaded. In one day 2 years ago we caught 2 catfish over 20 lbs, 7 over 10lbs and about a dozen around 5lbs. The old timer has a couple of pictures of him with multiple 10 lb bass out of there. So, the d**n has heavy moss on the edge of the dam which itself is composed of large white boulders. The weeds are about 10 feet tall around the edges and water visibility is about 5-7 feet easily. Today we did a bit of testing and we had; One 2lber - FireTiger 3/8 Double Willow Spinner (Multiple Short Hits) Seven 1lbs - ExCalibur Trout 7-10' Crankbait And one huge miss on a black spro frog. The fish jumped out of the water and missed. Guessing it in at around 3-4 lbs. We know from catfishing the bottom is loaded with JUNK and we lost a ton of rigs off the bottom. The weeds are merciless, but we can't gauge if it's only 10' deep or really 70-80. Long read but thanks for sticking with it and I look forward to seeing what ya'll have to say. I'll have pictures up in the outing section tomorrow...if we catch anything Quick edit: Tried multiple colors on the Spinners and trailers to see if it would help the short strikes but hey only went after the FireTiger. I tried probably 10-12 different cranks, but again they would follow it in and some would just swat at it. My buddy caught all the small ones on my trout colored crank. I was thinking of trying some plastics but I'm a little concerned about losing large amounts of line.

I have to second what Dink said. It took me alot of lost jigs until I started to me a little more delicate. Before I would raise my rod tip and try and break through the cover. Now I give little hops and when I feel contact I lower my tip then drag it over nice and slow. I've been throwing into some seriously nast stuff a couple times a week now for 2-3 weeks and haven't lost a jig yet. When I do feel the hang up, I bow and arrow move around then just grab my line and pull in whatever I was snagged on. <3 braid

Very nice. There is a couple of very good secret spots tucked away around the area. The trick is having the connections, and glad to see you have one!

Having three going on four years of Mixed Martial Arts training I could have badly disciplined him myself, but violence in that reguard isn't worth it. Keeping calm was the best thing I could have done because like many others said this guy easily could have been packing a gun or a utility knife. On a side note, I contacted the chairman of the board today and apparently there was another complaint similar to mine. The chairman has a description and is going to be looking towards a resolution

Thanks for your opinions everybody. I've got an idea which boat and vehicle was his, and if he did put in at the boat launch that will be a major fine. I'll be going back down there Friday to the council meeting to report the issue and see if something can be done.

Well first of all the area I'm fishing is a privately ran Bass Club. It is the backwaters of the Illinois River so it dosen't hold overly large fish. (3+ Lbs is quite outstanding) Anyways, It's a large lagoon type area that has a narrow passage into some more contained river backwater. There isn't a whole lot of cover, except the logs that float towards the banks and a few sunken trees. I was flippin' and pitchin' jigs around the edge when an obnoxious fellow greets me by telling me to get the hell out of "his" area. We were on seperate sides so I just laughed and went about my buisness. He happened to be flippin' and pitchin as well, but everytime I would cast he would yell SNAG! I caught two or three small 1.5 lb'ers while he caught none. He became rather hostile telling me I was stealing his fish etc etc. What took the cake, was for what little cover we have to fish, this guy got his jig hung up (Ironic, right?). He curses and hops in the water as he begins to tell me how he is going to "fix" the area. He starts pulling out all the logs and trees which were sunk by the board members then chucks a small chunk of wood in the area im fishing >_>. I tried to contact a board member but I've never seen this guy before and not to mention he pulled out probably 7-8 logs and some other man made cover around. Thoughts? I was pretty upset over the entire matter obviously. I must say it was pretty amazing to see a 40-50 year old man acting like a 7 year old boy.

Very nice fish, I would be revisiting often.

Protective eye gear? Mandatory PDF? I hope nobody enforces those rules upon my little town. The locals go out with machetes, axes, baseball bats, broomsticks and pitchforks in just their swimmin suits to go slay Asian Carp ;D

Herro!

Maybe my girlfriend would go fishing with me more often if we caught fish that quickly