Headed to Sturgeon Bay, with my dad and son for fathers day weekend, in 30 minutes. Hopefully I'll have something good to report

Big one for the day. Male, if i had to guess it was over 4lbs. Rest were all in the 1lb range. All caught on offshore structure. Strike king bonsai shad and swimjigs. We fished north of sturgeon bay today. Going to launch in Sturgeon Bay tomorrow. 

Learning to frog. Pretty fun. Not in love with how quickly Spro's take on water. Having luck with booyah pad crasher jr, kvd sexy frog, and scum frogs. Ordered a small live target to compare. 

Big one in the pic went about 3+.Tough bite today. Only 1 spot held more than one fish. It had 2 lol. Otherwise it was one here one there with long breaks in berween bites. Did a lot of moving around today. Fished in the ship canal late morning to get out of the wind. Picked up some small largemouth, 2 juvenile pike and a juvenile musky. Also found some panfish which helped break the boredom. Drove up to sister bay in the afternoon and launched there to hit the spots we were at yesterday but was too difficult to fish because of the wind. Had to move close to shore to dosge the wind. Picked up a few more and called it a day.

Went out to Lake Beulah on Sunday. Fished for 6 hours and we got 7 fish. I got (2) 15"ers and my wife got a 14",15", (2) 16" and a 17-3/4" largemouth. She had a good day. Fishing was very tough. Pic of her 17-3/4" bass.

On 6/16/2016 at 11:42 AM, stk said:

Hey, anyone from the central IL area?  How is lake jacksonville?  Any info would be great!

Thanks in advance!

- Tony

I'm here in central IL.  Mattoon area,  around 45 minutes south of champaign.  Where are you? 

13 hours ago, FordsnFishin said:

I'm here in central IL.  Mattoon area,  around 45 minutes south of champaign.  Where are you? 

Hey @FordsnFishin, I'm in Chicago.  I've got a kayak tournament down at Lake Jacksonville and just doing some prep work.  I will be down there Friday night and get some prefishing in on Saturday. 

On 6/22/2016 at 7:02 PM, FordsnFishin said:

I'm here in central IL.  Mattoon area,  around 45 minutes south of champaign.  Where are you? 

What made you move?  Do you miss the Monee Reservoir?

By the way this is Paul S or pswitzer or Bassin' Ted depending on what Chicagoland site you are on.  

Had to cure the itch today. Caught 3 in an hour. All on a @Siebert Outdoors brush dredge jig paired with a pit boss.

You see, I hate it when that happens...any time someone says Illinois, automatically all youse chit own people take over. You and your muskies and walleyes and small mouth! We have good largemouth down here in the better part of the state.

Nice ones!

I agree, the 51st state should be from I-80 to the North !!?

Early evening buzzbait. I enjoyed the fish but was a little bummed / surprised it bent the wire arm of my first time out Cavitron buzzbait. 

 

 

2 hours ago, beardown34 said:

Early evening buzzbait. I enjoyed the fish but was a little bummed / surprised it bent the wire arm of my first time out Cavitron buzzbait. 

Cool pic

1 hour ago, slonezp said:

Cool pic

thanks. i think i successfully un-sideways-ed the picture

I had to look at it twice, looked like some kind of Amazon toothy fish at first. I've been wanting to go night fishing for a long time.

Someone is a bit salty. You could always take a  drive up here and take advantage of the great fisheries we have available to us.  Oh wait, I forgot, you guys can't handle driving up here.  Looks like you can't handle a real boat either.

Oh snap!

50 minutes ago, papajoe222 said:

Someone is a bit salty. You could always take a  drive up here and take advantage of the great fisheries we have available to us.  Oh wait, I forgot, you guys can't handle driving up here.  Looks like you can't handle a real boat either.

Yeah, your right and we can't handle the high taxes and drive by shootings either! Btw, my father died in my "real boat" thanks for asking....

 

 

Not really! Just poking fun! Oh I forgot you crusty Yankees don't have a sense of humor! ???

Oh, I forgot! They don't even sell ice augers down here!?

I am well south of I80 lol...and my personal best muskies came from well south of I80 as well!

Evergreen and Kincaid.  Kincaid is not great for size but still a few big ones in there and Evergreen I don't like to talk about publicly...

Shelbyville is the furthest north that I've fished. And I've never caught a Muskie or walleye in my life. Those Muskie look like something out of the Amazon!

Get up to Canada.  It's a whole different perspective on Musky fishing. You see more fish than you will boat and it is exhilarating. I've seen some MONSTERS.  My biggest IL Ski out of the Fox River was around the 32" mark.  I know there has been 40+ taken but it is really rare.  Green Bay is another Musky hot spot but you need to know where to go and what you're doing.  

I have not traveled south to fish Musky ever, perhaps I should try.

 

Canada! That's a whole other country! You know us southern types don't have passports! Some of us never leave town.?

Evergreen may be worth a trip for you in that case...serious monsters in there with smaller fish as well to keep you casting. 

On a plus side I usually catch a few 6 pound bass there every year as well throwing oversized baits.

It would be hard to travel south though when a shorter trip is available to the north...lake is only 10 minutes north for me! 

That is a monster fish. Do y'all use a steel leader to catch those things?

I think it would be great to have an online tourney, north vs south. Of course it would be difficult for the south since most of us don't have Internet... Or "real boats"!

Then again, we don't have Asian carp either.

#65-80 braid and an #80 fluoro leader.  Some stuff I do fish direct which is risky but its pike that are more of an issue versus Musky.  I don't use steel/titanium leaders anymore. Fluoro doesn't mess with the action of baits as badly as a wire leader does. 

That fish was caught on a Deps 175 SS in flash carp.  Her teeth did some damage to the shell of the bait but nothing some super glue and a toothpick couldn't fix.  Once you catch a fish of that size, you could care less if a $100 lure gets busted up. It's all worth it.  The same trip my boat partner caught a 50" on a bucktail.  Pardon the craziness of the camera, it was mayhem.