TheOriginalFishaholic

J.M. you're exactly on the right track!

sure, if you can figure out how to fabricate it.

...you were stranded in a land unfamiliar to you, that had only one body of water of unknown depth and structure; you only have some fishing line and your wits...how would you go about catching your dinner? No rod, no reel, no knife...it's all on you...what would you do?

Still beats sittin' at home...you'll get em next time.

There was an eel caught in the Kankakee River a few years ago...almost 3 feet long! On a trip to Minnesota, a friend of mines kid accidentally caught a beaver...man they had their hands full with a ticked off beaver, LOL

I occassionally use large swimbaits in the Spring that are floaters, so that I've many options as to how I'm going to manipulate them in and about the water column.

I remember hooking an "axe handle" pike once that hit my Johnson Silver Minnow so hard that it flew out it's gill plate and was hanging outside the fish when along came a 35" pike that grabbed the dink and my spoon - landed both fish, and fortunately, the CO was watching the whole thing from the beginning so I didn't get ticketed.

you win! ;D ;D ;D that's definitely tough to top...and for that matter, ;D who'd want to.

1. a duck while fishing for trout in Arizona; 2. a seagull that grabbed my surface bait right off the water, when I was looking the other way for a brief moment...I heard the spash and my line got tight, so naturally I set the hook without even glancing in the direction of the strike! Received several nasty bites from the gull trying to retrieve my bait.; 3. a life jacket off a boat that kept buzzing us while we were fishing from shore; 4. a 13.5" red oscar while flyfishing for gills...unusual for a NW Indiana lake...one week later I caught a pirhauna in the same lake; and saving the best for last: 5. I saw a guy waddling like a duck in a ditch with chest-highs on, he said he left his rod on the bank and went back to his car for something when he returned it was gone...he left after waddling around kicking the bottom for 30 minutes in frustration...5 minutes later, a good ways down the ditch I snag someone's line...bring in his rod/reel and still on the line was a 10 lb. northern pike! I caught him just in time to return his rod/reel/ and yes, even the fish...he was delighted to have it all.

Pretty bony, but good eatin'...they can overpopulate a watershed - start takin' em home.

I like to swim different configurations of jigs in areas where there really heavy cover, along slop edges, and especially anywhere where there's a fairly strong current...it allows me to offer up a different profile, or look that can cause a reaction strike where traditional presentations haven't worked in the past. Lately, I will swim a jig whenever I'm fishing heavily pressured water... I know there's a lot of different techniques available to me when swimming a jig AND I'm able to drastically alter the thump, profile, and color/contrast combination in a myriad number of ways. For this reason I feel the concept of swimming a jig should never be overlooked.

Thanks! All prayers on my behalf for a speedy recovery are welcome and greatly appreciated...I've been itchin' all Winter to be roamin' the banks and backwaters of the Kankakee.

Looks like my Spring fishin' is shot...managed to get a serious allergic reaction in both feet along with a nasty infection...being primarily a shore fisherman, this means I'll be lucky if I'm pitchin' any baits by Summer.

NW Indiana here too...non-boater...here's my pics for best places to fish in this neck of the woods: Wolf Lake in Hammond for musky, pike, walleye and large & smallmouth bass; Lake George in Hobart for bass and slab crappies; Long Lake in Valparaiso for bass n gills; Flint Lake in Valparaiso for bass, crappies and walleyes; Willow Slough near Morocco (sp) for bass and gills; Pine/Stone Lake in LaPorte for bass, crappies and giant sunfish; Salt Creek, Beauty Creek, and Trail Creek for trout and salmon; Kankakee River for walleye, large & smallmouth bass, crappies and pike; Tippiecanoe River for smallmouth, walleye and pike; and a ton of small bodies of water near Hammond area in industrial and/or shopping areas that are loaded with slab crappies and big bass. Well, that ought to be enough to get you started anyway...my favorite is the Kankakee River - plenty of public access from the state line to an area near South Bend where the river starts/is joined by the Kankakee Ditch...ooops and don't forget the Yellow River for excellent smallmouth fishing too. Do you know if you can still rent boats on Wahoub? My Dad use to take us there when we were kids and the public was able to rent boats no public launch though. Sorry I don't know whether or not they're still renting boats there; the boat rentals for spectacle lake and long lake no longer exist. Flint Lake access is limited as well as Long Lake unless you have a boat. There was a boat rental operation on Lake George in Hobart, the last time I was out there, but since their flood I'm not sure on that score either. J.C. Murphy Lake (Willow Slough) does rent boats still.

I'll finally be getting out on the 16th & 18th... Lake Michigan a nice brown was taken last week by a guy from Hobart - 27.28 lbs. The Steelhead are in the streams, but with the heavy rain that hit yesterday it'll be a couple of days before it clears. I'm hoping to hit some feeder ditches along the Kankakee in search of walleye and pike. Cabin fever is drivin' me nuts and I'd a gone yesterday, but the lightning was fierce - opted to stay home.

Do you have any issues with line memory? I'm using the Cajun Red 4 & 6 lb. mono AND yes, line memory can be an issue, but I generally dress it with KVD Line & Lure Conditioner every night before I go out, which lessens the line memory issues. For the 2 & 4 lb. test on my super ultralite rig I'm using Berkley XL clear mono and just paying attention to the line quality for abrasions, retieing and stripping a portion off whenever necessary.

Hey! I'm in the Valparaiso area AND I fish the Kankakee approximately 90% of the time. I'm a shore fisherman and trust me, although boat fishing is great there's plenty of good access points for shore fishermen; not only on the river itself, but also for backwater areas, flooded marshes, feeder creeks & ditches. I'm always looking for someone interested in fishing along the Kankakee. I've fished Lake George in Hobart from a boat and taken bass up to 6.5 lbs from there...but the majority of the bass there are in the 1-3 lb range. Wolf Lake in Hammond is good for shore fishing - you can take nice bass, pike, musky and walleyes from shore there; in fact, in 2009 a 34 lb musky was caught by a shore angler there! If you're primarily gonna be fishing from shore, a nice pair of hip waders can be real handy for getting your presentation in the most optimal location. PM me if you're interested in hooking up this year for a little quality time on the Kankakee.

NW Indiana here too...non-boater...here's my pics for best places to fish in this neck of the woods: Wolf Lake in Hammond for musky, pike, walleye and large & smallmouth bass; Lake George in Hobart for bass and slab crappies; Long Lake in Valparaiso for bass n gills; Flint Lake in Valparaiso for bass, crappies and walleyes; Willow Slough near Morocco (sp) for bass and gills; Pine/Stone Lake in LaPorte for bass, crappies and giant sunfish; Salt Creek, Beauty Creek, and Trail Creek for trout and salmon; Kankakee River for walleye, large & smallmouth bass, crappies and pike; Tippiecanoe River for smallmouth, walleye and pike; and a ton of small bodies of water near Hammond area in industrial and/or shopping areas that are loaded with slab crappies and big bass. Well, that ought to be enough to get you started anyway...my favorite is the Kankakee River - plenty of public access from the state line to an area near South Bend where the river starts/is joined by the Kankakee Ditch...ooops and don't forget the Yellow River for excellent smallmouth fishing too.

Indiana bassin? My 2 favorites for smallies would be the Tippiecanoe and the Kankakee Rivers; for lakes, I like Lake of the Seven Springs, the Sullivan area, Wolf Lake, Maxinkuckee, Bass Lake, Deams Lake, Potato Creek, and Willow Slough (sometimes referred to as J.C. Murphy Lake).

My best two baits for pike have always been... 1. Johnson Silver Minnow, 3/4 oz. with a 6" white worm trailer; and, 2. Bettencourt Baits Slop Rodent The first bait works in just about any situation you can run into; the second one is an awesome topwater bait for working fish out of heavy slop (being a river backwater/slough fisherman this situation presents itself quite often). Of course, if you're fishing a wilderness lake/flowage in Canada any bait in your box will take pike. ;D

I consistently pull 3-5 pounders out of the timber on my ultralite gear...the reason for the light line is primarily an issue of having the baits fall and react exactly the way I want them to AND the fact that it's much more sensitive to a light hit than the heavier line. Don't get me wrong on this, I also have two other rods with me all the time - one rigged with 30 lb. test Stealth braid and the other with 50 lb. test Stealth braid...the two heavier rods are necessary for the larger baits I generally throw for reaction bites. I get a lot of harrassment from people I fish with when they see me tieing on a 9" surface bait or an 8" swim bait, but whatever works is my attitude...now the 2 heavy rods can handle those big baits, but my finesse baits drop in size drastically...all the way down to 1/124 oz. , hence, the necessity for light line and light gear. BTW, I do retie often and strip off line each time.

Keep in mind when you read this that I'm a shorebound fisherman...but still, all opinions are welcome. When conditions are tough I generally end up fishing heavy timber with light line; the line weights I use are 6lb. test Cajun Red on a 6' fast taper spinning rod and 2lb. test Berkley XT on a 5' super ultralite Berkley rod. I've had better luck with the 6lb. Cajun Red and even the 4lb. Cajun Red as far as abrasion trying to free hooked fish from the snags. Any preferences you have you're willing to discuss? If there's something better, I'd rather have the odds in my favor.

I'm a hard-core shore fisherman and I have experienced this many times in the past...and have since changed my approach to early season bass AND clear water conditions - I believe in stealth and dressing according to the season, trying to blend in with my surroundings as much as possible. Sure, there's times when not even the stealthiest approach will work, but that just makes the urge to succeed even stronger, LOL...sometimes it's not the patient fisherman who catches his prey, but the impatient one - the guy/gal who's gonna try everything and anything to trigger a positive response. The best results I've had under extremely clear water conditions is simply to use very light line and down-size my baits...and never underestimate the positive results from dead-sticking.

I totally agree with alot of what has been said here; however, I've had great success immediately after torrential downpours and if it's a really nasty storm moving through, when the eye of the storm calms the water down for a brief interlude, the fishing can also be awesome. When a serious coldfront moves in I generally switch over to ultralite tackle and light line...even going to a jig-n-float combo, using jigs as small as 1/124th of an oz. really tight to heavy timber. Before an after a major front seems to be good...although, with a little finnesse during too...oh wait, it's all good to me ;D

Tippiecanoe River, Kankakee River and backwater areas both are superb for largemouth and smallmouth, and the walleye fishing isn't too shabby either. If you like steelhead try any of the streams in Northern Indiana - Trail Creek, Salt Creek, Beauty Creek, the Little Calumet River...maps and access points are available for all of these area from the INDNR. How about trying for a giant musky? Just this past year a 34 lb. musky was caught from shore at Wolf Lake in Hammond. But seriously, goto the INDNR site and you'll find a long list of places that are available for quality shore fishing.