MultiSpeciesFisherman

I live in Illinois and I would really like to get better at walleye fishing. Would you just troll crankbaits, drift with worms or leeches, or cast for them? What type of structure, what depth, etc? Walleye are absolutely my favorite fish to eat and if I could catch them consistently, they would probably be the only fish I'd ever target. Any help would be great.

Fair enough.

I would say that is a filefish species of some kind. http://www.florida-keys-fishing.org/insets/big-fish/file-fish.jpg

I live in Pontiac...about a half hour north of Bloomington-Normal or about an hour and a half south of Chicago.

I've never seen a replica that looks as good as the skin mounts this guy I go to does. I'm sorry but we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I'm happy with my decision.

Another good bit of advice would be to try using heavier braided line. Some guys in tournaments use up to 65 pound braid when fishing heavily weeded areas, but I think anything over 30 pounds is a bit of overkill. 30 pound braid with Texas rigged worm would be a killer set up for this type of cover.

Well it's owned by her uncle but it is actually a pretty popular place for a private quarry. I see other people out there fishing all the time. He has given out quite a few keys to friends and family. As nice as it would be to get a DD, I didn't really want to run the risk of that fish ending up on someone else's wall. Plus, there is no shortage of big bass at that place. The owner had a 6.5 pounder mounted out of there and caught one afterwards that was 7.5, and then another above 6 and one between 4 and 5 pretty recently. He has only been stocking for a few years, but he stocks Florida bass. As they have a faster growth rate than the northern strain largemouth that is native to around here, they get big a lot quicker than in most places. So I don't know if I caught the only one out there this size. There may be some just as big or bigger. And if not, I would say there should be within a few years time. You certainly go through a lot of little ones before you get to the ones that are bigger, and as with most stocked ponds and quarries, there aren't a whole lot of fish in the medium size range. I caught a 2 pounder out there the other day and so far that's the only one in this category that I've seen out there. Trust me...when I got it in the boat a million thoughts were racing through my mind about what to do with it lol. Seeing a bass like that around here will send you into sensory overload pretty quick. I just knew it was easily the best one I've ever caught and I couldn't let it go this time. But I'm not upset at you guys for saying I missed the opportunity. Again, that was one of the thoughts that crossed my mind.

I tried looking on Google and found some interesting things like the neko rig, but it only showed someone using it, not how to set it up. How do you guys rig your minnows/flukes when smallmouth fishing? I would be interested in both weedless and more exposed-hook setups.

For the live bait, hook them either right through the lips or under the dorsal fin. I saw them catching stripers on swimbaits one time on In-Fisherman, but I know stripers are a lot more leary than most fish. All I can say for sure is this: be prepared for a battle if you hook one of these things. They are by far the strongest fish I have ever caught, including carp.

Those big blues (at least where I catch them) are just as good to eat as the smaller ones. You just have to cut a thinner filet. Keep all of the red meat near the skin out of your filet and you won't be able to taste the difference.

I actually have been doing better in the evening, and particularly just before nightfall, than I have been at any other time of the day.

Yeah I know. Believe it or not I really hate the idea of having a fish mounted, but this one was just too good to pass on. Especially considering where I caught it (central Illinois). If it had been at Lake Fork or something I probably would have looked at it, said "Nice bass" and released it. But around here, the thing almost gave me a heart attack when I saw it and I'm just a young guy.

There is an excellent point right across from Point 3 which is great for bass. Try fishing a deep diving crankbait. If you are looking at the sign that says "3" straight on, it is on your right. It divides two coves and runs really far out into the lake. We caught a 3 pounder and a 2 pounder at that spot last time we were there using Bandit 300 Series Cranks.

I fish at my wife's uncle's quarry pretty often, and I always fish the entire shoreline of the quarry but often feel like I am missing out on so much of the water out there because I really have no clue how or when to fish open water. I know there are fish to be caught because every once in a while I will catch a stray one trolling, but I don't know any consistent techniques I can use to get them out in the open. Does anyone have any experience with this? I know there is plenty of submerged structure, but most of the quarry is no more than about 6 feet deep, with only a couple of spots that are in the 8-9 foot depth range.

A lot of the time, taxidermists charge by the inch or by the overall size of the fish. And generally, you get what you pay for. There are some exceptions...and I'm sure the guy who did work for the above poster did a good job...but the guy I go to charged right around $300 for my smallie and for my largemouth. But then again, the ones I did weren't like typical mounts. My smallie is a free-standing statue-like mount, mounted on a rock with a wood stand. And my largemouth is going to be mounted on a piece of driftwood in a lifelike swimming pose. Here is my smallmouth mount he did for me. This was a 6 pound monster smallie I caught at Lake Cumberland, KY while fishing for stripers.

Hey guys. I'm new on the forum but I'm a fellow Illinois resident. I live in Pontiac. We have a little river that flows through here called the Vermillion River that is filled...and I mean FILLED with smallmouths. I fish the dams pretty often for bronzebacks. The one in my profile pic came out of one of them not 2 blocks from my house. Other than the river, I also love to fish LaSalle lake for big blue catfish, and Lake Shelbyville for crappie, white bass, and walleye although admittedly I'm a horrible walleye fisherman. If anyone has any tips for me as to how to fish Shelbyville for walleye, I would be very interested as they are my favorite fish to eat.

I was fishing at my wife's uncle's quarry (guess I married into the right family lol) when I caught this monster 8.3 pound Largemouth. I caught her on a Texas rigged 7 inch black/red fleck PowerBait Thump Worm. This, according to her uncle, was the largest bass caught out of the quarry to his knowledge. With his blessing, the bass is currently at the taxidermist's getting mounted and should be back any day now. Anyway, here she is.

Looks like a warmouth to me...otherwise maybe some type of hybrid sunfish. But certainly appears to be a warmouth.

The outfit we use to catch them is actually a 2-jig setup. We use two quarter ounce jig heads with 4 inch twister tails, one tied about 18 inches up the line from the other. I usually tie on a Blue Fox Vibrax Spinner as my trailer jig in the fall though because that gets the attention of the walleye that tend to follow the whites around. I even caught a 44 inch muskie last year using this set up. The good thing about the 2 jig rig is that when you hook into one white bass, you reel it in slowly because the others think the one you have is chasing bait fish and you can get a second one hooked at the same time. It gets pretty fun reeling in 2 at a time as strong as they are.

Sean I know Lake Cumberland Kentucky has breeding stripers. The ones we caught this year were either full of eggs, full of sperm, or all drawn out due to having just laid out all their eggs.

I live about 2 hours north of Lake Shelbyville, Illinois and it has a ridiculous population of white bass. They get into really shallow water in the fall...about 2 feet or less...and hit absolutely anything you throw at them. There is no limit on how many you can keep since their population is so large in the lake. The last three times we have gone, we kept 74, 50, and 89 whites and I know there are people who catch and keep more than that regularly. They are a ton of fun to catch as they fight really hard for a smaller fish, and they are absolutely delicious if you know how to clean them. I don't hear them discussed very often though. Do you guys ever target them?

I guess I go against conventional wisdom. I use much larger baits than the ones mentioned here. You will be surprised how small of a smallmouth will hit a 7 inch PowerBait Thump Worm. Other than that I use 200 Series Bandit Crankbaits and they produce really well also. I catch larger fish on both of these types of lure but I also catch them as small as 4-5 inches pretty regularly. I don't feel like using these larger baits hurts the number of fish I catch either. Then again I mostly fish in the early morning or evening. Maybe during the day using a smaller set up might get the more finicky fish going.

I grew up with my grandparents. My grandpa was an avid catfish/ crappie fisherman. We often caught them while we were trying to catch crappie at the dams on my local river when I was a kid. My grandpa would always yell "d**n smallmouth!" every time he thought he had a nice crappie on and found out it was a smallmouth. I was amazed that these tiny smallmouth he would often catch would fight harder than even the largest crappie we would catch. So this nuisance fish to him became a prize to me. I still thought of them as a bit of a rarity around me until a couple of years ago (about 15 years after first discovering them fishing with my grandpa) when I started using artificial baits rather than just live baits. I started catching one after another on 3 inch twister tails, but they were all small. I was using light tackle mostly and one time I had my line broken, leading me to believe there were bigger ones in the river. I switched to heavier line, heavier action rods, and Bandit crankbaits and since then I have caught a 4 pounder and a 3 pounder. I rarely fish for them (I have no idea why) so even though the big ones were spread out over a couple of years, I think I could have caught more prizes in that span if I had been trying. This last one I caught (the 3 pounder) reminded me of my fondness for them though. I had a good, lengthy battle with him to try and get him up out of that fast moving water at the dam. Even in the placid water, he did a good job of putting the outcome just a little in doubt for me though. Here are some photos: The four pounder from a couple of years ago The 3 pounder I caught a couple of weeks ago And my biggest ever smallie: a monster 6 pounder I caught at Lake Cumberland, KY while fishing for stripers