hamer08

I do most of my fishing in a canoe and use portable electronics, I have this one, http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_75236_200001001_200000000_200001000_200-1-1 I made a small mount for the sensor using a 8" piece of 1/2" copper pipe and pieces of a swimming noodle to make it float. It runs of 8 AA batteries so you can take it anywhere. They also have castable ones, but I've generally heard compliants about them. I'm still learning to fish the deep water myself. Good luck

I can provide enough chum to last a lifetime. Last time when went, we caught 12-15 20 lbers in a couple of hours, plus numerous smaller ones. That's over 300 lbs of fish. That doesn't event put a dent in their population. Here's a 30 lb Bighead Carp.

Becareful of what you ask for!!!!!! Before retiring and leaving the San Diego County area in 94, they had already addressed this issue by making lakes "SKI ONLY" on certain weekends, Yep, they alternated days and weekends with skiers and fishermen, also when both are allowed on the water at the same time, you could only go in one direction on the lake. If you went out, you took the tour of the whole lake, because you would get ticket for coming in wrong. Matt, Nobody ever accused Californians of common sense. Actually that may be a reasonable solution if the lake was truly that crowded. But, I'm pretty confident if fishermen don't lobby for their interests, no one else will.

I would suggest lobbying the lakes management (for enforcement or new rules), preferably through a fishing club. These organizations can be very powerful in making changes on public lakes. You can also use these organizations to promote other fish friendly changes. I rarely have to deal with these types of problems, I think in part to a strong visible fishing lobby. Pretty much any lake/reservoir I fish less than 3000 acres has a 10 or 25 hp max limit on them. The larger reservoirs get the recreational traffic. But, you still maybe able to restrict parts of large reservoirs if you have a strong lobby. Good luck and be part of the solution and not the problem.

Asian carp describes a couple of invasive species, in IL its primarily Silver Carp (the ones that jump) and Bighead Carp. Both are easily distinguished from the common carp and grass carp. I just read on the IN dept of nat res webpage, if you catch a silver carp you are required to kill it immediately. I guess they don't care for them either.

I use to say the same thing until I saw how fast and big of a change these fish can change a waterway. In a decade they have become the most abundant (by weight) fish in the river. They are filter feeders so the compete directly with gizzard shad and most fish frys for food. Their effects on other species are just now being felt, so its hard to predict what will happen in the next decade. So there is a reason these are the only fish you are permitted to harvest by snagging. We could debate the ethics of snagging till we're blue in the face. One thing which is ironic, if these were mammals it would be unethical to catch or lure them using food. Yet, with fish its only ethical is we catch them with food or food mimics. Somehow a hook hidden in a hamburger is prefered to a hook out of the clear blue sky, even in this case were C&R isn't an option. Food for thought

Anyone have any experience snagging these guys? I went for the first time yesterday on the IL river and what a blast. I got a general idea on how to hook them after a little practice. Definately the strongest fighting fresh water fish I've ever tangled with. I can see already I need to get some special tackle for them. These 20 lbers made my bass tackle seem like toy tackle.

I'm always surprised at the size of food bass and other fish try to eat. I went fishing this morning and tried a senko type lure (5" Yum Dinger, t-rigged, weightless) for the first time. The bass loved it and I caught some nice bass with it. On one retrieve, the lure was almost next to the boat and I felt a small fish hitting it. So I brought the lure near the surface so I could see what it was, it turned out to be a 3-4" bass with about one inch of the lure in its mouth. Since the lure is tapered and thicker in the middle, it looked like he got as much in his mouth as he could before being too big to fit in his mouth. I had him on the surface with his dorsal fin out of the water and he still didn't want to let go or he was stuck. He finally let go and swam away, but it was pretty impressive to see a 3-4" fish try and eat a 5" yum dinger.

I averaged about 3 per hr on most trips this year. I'm slowly improving qaulity as a I learn the lakes we fish. This morning, I hit 3 nice fish in 4 casts. Thats when you know your plan has come together.

MDM, I'm about an hour south of you and I've noticed in the last week or two the bite as slowed down a fair amount. I'm still trying to figure it out myself. I know we've had some different weather fronts coming through, so maybe that is partially to blame. I have found a work around. The bass around here seem to be very active when its dark. I don't mean dusk and dawn, I mean before sunrise when its still dark (<5:00) or after dark (>9:00). Tuesday night, I picked up a 4-5 lb bass after dark and had some plastic riping hits before being drove off by mosquitoes. I wasn't prepared for the bugs, since I didn't plan on staying that late. The last 3 times I went fishing (2 mornings and 1 night) the fish were noticeabley more active when it was still dark. Its also a blast catching fish in the dark. I need a headlamp or something to make it easier to unhook them. good luck

No, they can't digest it and it may or may not pass. I see several photos of the contents of a large bass's stomach which had bits and pieces of several different types of plastics.

They were T-rigged, 7" berkley PB worms, red shad and a couple 2 color varieties. T-rigging is a confidence bait for me, so I was a little disappointed.

At the end of the day, all that really matters is the time you put in learning. You can maximize your effort by practicing some things at home instead of on the water. I'm also learning the baitcaster this year. You should be practicing that at home in the backyard whenever you have some free time. I been doing that and it has greatly improved my confidence and allows you to focus only on the casting. It allowed me to focus on improving certian aspects of my casting. I noticed, while comfortable with basic casts, I'm not "loading the rod" when using a baitcaster. While this is less of a problem when chucking a 3/4 oz C-rig, with lighter lure its much more important. I'll be practicing in the backyard tonight, while breaking in another BPS extreme combo.

fish-fighting-il, I live in the Peoria area also (moved into the area a couple of years ago from OH). I'm still learning about bassin central IL style. The lily pad lake I was fishing is Spring lake. I only caught one 12" on a Jitterbug about a 1/2 hr before sunrise. After sunrise, we fished the lily pads and edges with spoons and plastic worms without a bite. It was my first time bass fishing there so I wasn't sure what the problem was. There were other boats targeting the same areas with the same results. I was really surprised by the action of the Johnson spoon and pork rind tail. I will continue to try that when the opprotunity presents itself.

I saw some birds hovering over the water this weekend (IL). They looked like huge hummingbirds, but they obivously weren't. I'd like to know what they are though. I grew up in OH. One aunt would give us ducklings at Easter and we would release them into my grandfather lake. Almost every duckling we put in the lake would get eaten by snapping turtles. Luckily, we liked eating turtles, so in the end it was a fair.

I usually do the same thing I'd do if I lip hooked them. Most of the time, I C & R and only harvest occasionally when I feel like dealing with cleaning them. I the fish is injured, I'll still release them. I figure he can feed the muskies, catfish, bald eagles, etc,... maybe even a 20 lb LM.

I'll be paddling. I think I'll try to get there an hour or so before sunrise and work the openwater from the bank with topwater lures. Once the sun comes up, I'll try the lily pads from the canoe.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll stop by my sporting goods store on the way home tonight and see what of these they have available. I'm interested to try a spoon, just to see if I can catch a fish with it. I'm a little curious as to what the max depth is you have with lily pad coverage, I'm in IL. I'm also considering taking the canoe, how easy is it to get a canoe through lily pads? Is it just more trouble than its worth?

I plan on fishing a large lake this weekend that is ~50% covered by lily pads with little other cover. I've never dealt with so many lily pads, what method would you try? While researching the idea, I saw some old timers swear by the spoon. I've never fished a spoon before. Any ideas?

I fish most of the time with someone else. I don't mind fishing alone. But I'm pretty busy most of the time and like to kill two birds with one stone. So I often take the kids and/or GF with me, which is a huge distraction to serious fishing. I'll adjust my fishing stragedy to accomodate all of the minor emergencies thay are bound to occur. If we're in a boat, then I just assume fishing is a secondary objective. I'm just glad to have my line wet. I do have serveral fisherman friends I enjoy going out with. We all tend to be experts at a certain species or at least at a certain location. Most of the time I feel these fishing partners are worth the minor inconveniences they bring (most are very well mannered though). With these guys, the fishing is fairly serious and they are on a comparable skill/enthusaism level. It seems like a lot of people have trouble finding fisherman as serious as yourself, have you tried fishing clubs or other ways of finding serious fisherman?

I personally wouldn't. But my in experience, these "private ponds" aren't as good fishing as a regular managed public lake anyhow. If the private pond is actively managed for fishing then the owner will be very protective of its fishing rights. But these "private" ponds with somewhat easy access (i.e. apartment complexes, POAs, golf courses, industrial, etc) usually are poor producers. I'm lucky enough to live in an area with ample public fishing. We also have alot of strip mine lakes that have been stocked and managed. The best fishing is always at least a half mile walk from the car and the cream of the crop requires you to portage a boat (thank god for canoe carts). So instead of sneaking around, its much better to develop a network of fishing friends that can show you new places to fish and more importantly how to fish them. You should also look into sportsmans club that have and manage their own lakes.