Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PHOTOS
- Andrew R
- Elite Angler
- Posts: 277
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2003 6:19 pm
- Location: Illinois & Wisconsin
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Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PHOTOS
Today was a decent day to be out on this river which is rated at a C+ in my River Grading System...that's how it is to me. Today wasn't the best, but we still caught a few fish and did lots of scouting and exploring, but like any day of fishing, it's still better than the best day at school, or at work.
My 'ole man and I started the day out a Blackhawk Park, about 3 miles south of South Elgin, IL. The water was high, and higher than usual, especially for this shallow stretch of the river. We began using Mepps & Rapalas (jointed & floating), like always, just covering some water quickly and hoping for some fish that we usually find by all of the fallen trees & log piles. With the heavier current, we really weren't getting the control that we needed for the baits. While fishing with a Chartreuse Jointed Rapala, I had a nice surprise, a smallish 15-20" Channel Cat.
Blackhawk Park Forest Preserve
Fallen Trees - My favorite type of river structure, especially on the Fox river... Very little current.....Blackhawk is loaded with this structure along its many islands & river banks.
After a short while of covering water with my new favorite bait, the Rebel F93 Wee-R Crankbait,
I finally hooked into something fairly large off a wood-infested shoreline, here's what happened during the "Battle".
"The Battle" yes, it took me a good 4-5 minutes of fighting off this redhorse sucker on 6lb P-line CXX. This could be a Carp tho... You can tell that I dont fish for Carp or for the rough-fish very often. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Notice in the last picture, the fish just inhaled the crankbait. I was using this to cover some water while wading to a spot. Lucky Catch? Who knows?
Mepps spinners & shallow-0diving cranks are the baits to use if you ever plan on covering water while wading... It will help you score some fish.
After fishing my favorite place on the Fox for a good 2hrs, we headed down to Geneva to check out if it was good enough for fishing. We ded some scouting, and this place along with Blackhawk could be in this next Friday's plans during the Chicago Regional GF outing (Let me know if any other Chicago guys wanna fish with me, Randy, or JUG)
Next we headed down to the Lower Batavia Dam - waste of space!! Barely any water goes over the dam, and the ILDNR is taking their time planning to demolish this place.. Sorry, but no photo. We fished about 500yrds downstream of the Dam and scouted an area south of Glenwood Forest Preserve (off of rt 25). Now that area looks very promising, but didn't catch anything.
Afterwards, we checked out the North Aurora Dam area, and downstream near the I-88 overpass, it also looked decent, but didn't fish there.
Finally, we ended the day over at Leslie C. Arends Forest Preserve in Batavia, IL . This is a very beautiful stretch of the river, but from what I saw, it looks very mucky and muddy to even wade. Especially in the side channels. The main river is where I want to go!
Main river channel (goes from left ro right in photo)
mucky side channel
mucky side channel
TOTALS
----------
- 1) 4-5lb Redhorse Sucker
- 1) 15-20" Channel Cat
I'll be back on Friday (spring break)
andrew
My 'ole man and I started the day out a Blackhawk Park, about 3 miles south of South Elgin, IL. The water was high, and higher than usual, especially for this shallow stretch of the river. We began using Mepps & Rapalas (jointed & floating), like always, just covering some water quickly and hoping for some fish that we usually find by all of the fallen trees & log piles. With the heavier current, we really weren't getting the control that we needed for the baits. While fishing with a Chartreuse Jointed Rapala, I had a nice surprise, a smallish 15-20" Channel Cat.
Blackhawk Park Forest Preserve
Fallen Trees - My favorite type of river structure, especially on the Fox river... Very little current.....Blackhawk is loaded with this structure along its many islands & river banks.
After a short while of covering water with my new favorite bait, the Rebel F93 Wee-R Crankbait,
I finally hooked into something fairly large off a wood-infested shoreline, here's what happened during the "Battle".
"The Battle" yes, it took me a good 4-5 minutes of fighting off this redhorse sucker on 6lb P-line CXX. This could be a Carp tho... You can tell that I dont fish for Carp or for the rough-fish very often. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Notice in the last picture, the fish just inhaled the crankbait. I was using this to cover some water while wading to a spot. Lucky Catch? Who knows?
Mepps spinners & shallow-0diving cranks are the baits to use if you ever plan on covering water while wading... It will help you score some fish.
After fishing my favorite place on the Fox for a good 2hrs, we headed down to Geneva to check out if it was good enough for fishing. We ded some scouting, and this place along with Blackhawk could be in this next Friday's plans during the Chicago Regional GF outing (Let me know if any other Chicago guys wanna fish with me, Randy, or JUG)
Next we headed down to the Lower Batavia Dam - waste of space!! Barely any water goes over the dam, and the ILDNR is taking their time planning to demolish this place.. Sorry, but no photo. We fished about 500yrds downstream of the Dam and scouted an area south of Glenwood Forest Preserve (off of rt 25). Now that area looks very promising, but didn't catch anything.
Afterwards, we checked out the North Aurora Dam area, and downstream near the I-88 overpass, it also looked decent, but didn't fish there.
Finally, we ended the day over at Leslie C. Arends Forest Preserve in Batavia, IL . This is a very beautiful stretch of the river, but from what I saw, it looks very mucky and muddy to even wade. Especially in the side channels. The main river is where I want to go!
Main river channel (goes from left ro right in photo)
mucky side channel
mucky side channel
TOTALS
----------
- 1) 4-5lb Redhorse Sucker
- 1) 15-20" Channel Cat
I'll be back on Friday (spring break)
andrew
- Andrew R
- Elite Angler
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- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2003 6:19 pm
- Location: Illinois & Wisconsin
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Re: Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PH
hmm.......for some reason, my images don't work on this site... They work at the other 15 fishing sites I belong to
what could the problem be?
what could the problem be?
- swear by senkos
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Re: Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PH
nice report, you might want to give the head honcho here a message, asking him why.
- Jinz000
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Re: Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PH
Great catches, nice report. A day like that of catching fish is probably one of the better days for me.
Re: Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PH
I went to some of those picture links and looked at your pictures.
Pretty cool! Water must have been coooooooooold!
(I believe the pictures didn't work because this type of forum software
requires an image extention at the end for it to work like .jpg or .gif,
that's what I was told before when I asked)
Pretty cool! Water must have been coooooooooold!
(I believe the pictures didn't work because this type of forum software
requires an image extention at the end for it to work like .jpg or .gif,
that's what I was told before when I asked)
- Holy Mackerel !
- Senior Angler
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- Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2004 1:58 pm
- Location: Massachusetts
Re: Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PH
Andrew R wrote:hmm.......for some reason, my images don't work on this site... They work at the other 15 fishing sites I belong to
what could the problem be?
use the ip addess with a jpg extension.
instead of http://www.illinoiswaters.net/photos/small/2722
use this http://www.illinoiswaters.net/photos/small/2722.jpg
which is the image below...
yep it works!
Oh very nice fish!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re: Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PH
Andrew,
I've edited your post with the jpg extentions.
First picture didn't seem to work, not sure why yet.
I've edited your post with the jpg extentions.
First picture didn't seem to work, not sure why yet.
JIP - TackleTour.com
http://www.tackletour.com
http://www.tackletour.com
- Andrew R
- Elite Angler
- Posts: 277
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2003 6:19 pm
- Location: Illinois & Wisconsin
- Contact:
Re: Chicago, IL Suburbs - FOX River Report 4/10/04 - WITH PH
Hey.... thanks JIP
I'll have to remember about the JIF or JPG codes that I need. I've never used them to post images at my other places before.
appreciate it!
andrew
p.s. I also don't know why the 1st photo isn't coming in
I'll have to remember about the JIF or JPG codes that I need. I've never used them to post images at my other places before.
appreciate it!
andrew
p.s. I also don't know why the 1st photo isn't coming in