Variable perch, some early coho and variable or no ice: Midwest Fishing Report

There’s variable perch around Chicago, some early coho and variable or no ice in this sprawling raw-file Midwest Fishing Report.

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Tim Bob Vaught with a true jumbo caught from shore at 92nd.

Provided

A mixed bag of reports, with this long stretch of unseasonable weather, for this sprawling raw-fie Midwest Fishing Report.

One of those mixed bags is wildly variable ice fishing; another one is some early coho in Indiana.

An important piece of the mixed bags is is perch fishing around Chicago. Tim Bob Vaught messaged the photo above of a 15-inch-plus perch at 92nd from shore; he said that catfish belly has been working good lately.en working real good lately.

LAKEFRONT PERCH

Much the same. Most consistent is for boaters on the Calumet system. Shore fishing remains variable at the South Side slips, but can be good when on. I suspect the Christmas tradition of perch fishing at Navy Pier will be a tough go. Perch fishing at the downtown and North Side harbors and the Chicago River has been slow or non-existent.

Capt. Rich Sleziak at Slez’s Bait in Lake Station texted:

Perch from cal park to near ford plant fish moving a lot but plenty being caught xl fatheads and perch Flys best

LAKEFRONT PARKING

Readers suggest SpotHero app downtown. Montrose (free parking); Navy Pier (check in parking office in east lot, be out by 10 a.m. for $8 angler parking); DuSable Harbor (fisherman’s lot); Northerly Island/Burnham Harbor (meters or fisherman’s lot); Steelworkers Park (free street parking at east end of 87th).

CHICAGO LAKEFRONT PASSES

Pier passes ($6) for select piers in Chicago harbors and $10 parking passes (DuSable, Burnham fisherman’s lots) are available at Henry’s Sports and Bait or Northerly Island (10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, credit card only).

SALMON SNAGGING

Season ends Tuesday, Dec. 31 at select locations on the lakefront.

AREA LAKES

You will notice that I did not include the list of regulations for local ice fishing, because what bit of ice fishing is left is likely to disappear this week, even north and west.

I think Ken “Husker” O’Malley summed it up well when he emailed:

Hey Dale, Here is a recap of this past week’s fishing. Area lakes-waiting for that deep freeze to occur. Mother Nature is not cooperating. Shorelines are 4-5 inches, but on 2 inches 10-15 feet out. What ice there is continues to deteriorate each day. Long rods might be in order. TTYL Hope you and the family have a Merry Christmas.

Plan to collect our oldest son in a couple hours and our whole gang will be home.

CHAIN O’LAKES AREA

Proprietor Greg Dickson at Triangle Sports and Marine in Antioch said there are ``isolated situations where some people are still going ice fishing, but be very careful.’’ Weather forecast does not look to be encouraging for ice lasting.

BTW, Hermann’s Rest-a-While, which offers parking, access, food and drink, also offers to include people on text messages about ice conditions at Nielsen’s Channel.

Absolutely! Please tell anyone who wants to opt in to this service they can text ice conditions to (847) 309-2225.

CHICAGO RIVER

Waiting on perch to come in.

COOLING LAKES

Braidwood, Heidecke and LaSalle are closed for the season.

DOWNSTATE

POWERTON: Reopened to bank fishing, daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Boat fishing reopens Feb. 15.

EMIQUON: Go to http://experienceemiquon.com/content/nature-conservancy-emiquon-preserve-lake-access. SHELBYVILLE: Check with Ken Wilson of Lithia Guide Service. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS: Check with Jason Johns of Boneyard Fishing. HENNEPIN-HOPPER: Closed for the season.

GREEN LAKE AREA, WISCONSIN

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Harry Bowey from Princeton, WI with a late December smallmouth bass caught with guide Mike Norris.

Provided by Mike Norris

Guide Mike Norris emailed the photo above. I am envious that he is still getting on smallmouth such as that this late in the year.

Norris also supplied the report below and the photo below the report:

Fishing Report – 12/23/2019 Mike Norris Big Green Lake - Last week was a big week for fishing both hard and soft water fishing at Big Green Lake. I started the week out searching for bluegills in the frozen backwater channels of Big Green and the gills were cooperating. I also saw a lot of northern pike roaming beneath the shallow ice though I didn’t fish for them. While the back bays of Big Green are frozen with up to six inches of ice, the main lake remains wide open. So, when the weather warmed late last week, I opted to pull the boat back out and check up on the smallmouth bass bite with guest Harry Bowey. We weren’t disappointed. Despite a water temperature of 38-degrees and dead floating vegetation indicating Big Green had turned over, we were able to quickly locate schools of big smallmouth bass which readily attacked our live bait offering. Throw in a couple bonus walleye just before sunset and it was an amazing day on the water. Little Green Lake – Anglers are catching 10 to 13-inch walleyes on tip-ups. Lots of action but the minimum size limit for walleyes on Little Green is 15 inches. Most action is coming early in the morning or around sunset. Panfish can be caught throughout the day in the weeds located around the Island. Try small jigs tipped with plastic tails. Lake Puckaway – Tip-up anglers fishing with medium-sized shiners are doing well catching northern pike on this shallow 5,000-acre aneurism along the Fox River in Marquette County. Lake Puckaway is the home to Wisconsin’s of a 45-inch state record northern pike of 38 lbs. which was caught back in 1952. While pike of that size aren’t currently common on Lake Puckaway, decent sized pike are still caught there every year. The WNDR manages Lake Puckaway as a trophy pike lake and the minimum size limit for northern pike at Puckaway is 32-inches with a daily bag limit is one pike.

Resized/Sun-Times

Bluegill on the ice, where safe ice formed.

Provided by Mike Norris

GREEN/STURGEON BAYS, WISCONSIN

Check the Wisconsin DNR weekly report at https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/lakemichigan/OutdoorReport.html

LAKE ERIE

Check the report at http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/fishing/fishing-forecasts-and-reports/the-fish-ohio-report

LAKEFRONT

Perch at top.

Tim Adkins at Henry’s Sports and Bait http://www.henryssports.com/ (closed Christmas) in Bridgeport texted:

I’m still seeing lots of lakers caught (from boats) in this nice weather

There continues to be the occasional steelhead, brown trout and northern pike surprise, too, for perch anglers. I would love to see a report of a surprise or bonus walleye, but haven’t yet.

Lori Ralph at the Salmon Stop in Waukegan texted:

Morning, the weather has been perfect, hunting sucks from what I’ve heard, but the very few guys fishing off the pier are getting fish, browns and steelies, but not a ton of reports. Aug and I may try to go today, I’ll let you know. We are telling people to call the shop, hours are daily depending on what we feel like doing. Merry Christmas Dale!!

I respect those hours.

Park Bait at Montrose Harbor is closed for the season.

SALMON SNAGGING: Ends Tuesday, Dec. 31.

MADISON LAKES, WISCONSIN

Gene Dellinger at D&S Bait said they ``still got some ice.’’ Probably the best for ice fishing is Monona Bay for bluegills; the ice is good at Cherokee Marsh, but fishing only fair; there’s a bit of perch at Kegonsa, not much on bluegill; Waubesa is iced but quiet.

Check the D&S Bait update at https://www.facebook.com/dsbaitandtackle/.

MAZONIA LAKES

Lakes reopen Thursday, Dec. 26, to either open-water or ice fishing. When ice fishing comes, it is at your own risk.

NORTHERN WISCONSIN

Kurt Justice at Kurt’s Island Sport Shop emailed:

The latter part of last week did us no favors for ice making. Reports are pretty much stagnant as night time lows in the mid-20’s only firmed up the top crust while day time highs in the 30’s softened them up again. Due to these conditions, recommendations are for anglers to walk for the most part. Lakes have frozen unevenly, with reports of as much as 12 and as little as 3, sometimes on the same lake. Northern Pike: Very Good – Good action and size (a 37 & 38 reported over weekend). Big baits along outside weed edges and above weeds in 6-12’ of water. Bluegills: Very Good – Action and size (8+) in 6-9’ of cabbage. Moussees and waxies best on tear-drop jigs. Plastics in red, purple, motor oil and black producing best. Crappies: Very Good – Slow dropping plastics on rocker jigs producing nice catches of 10-12 Crappies in 8-12’ green cabbage. Light colored plastics of white, chartreus and pink. Rockers of white, chartreus or gold. Walleye: Good-Very Good – Just before and after dusk, then again around 10 PM. A few, crack of dawn anglers, also reporting good success. Suckers on tip-ups best. Jigging raps, slab-raps and rippin raps as well as slender spoons and Flash Champ spoons tipped with a minnow head have produced some big Walleyes of late. Largemouth Bass: Good-Very Good – This species tends to get active during these mild spells. Jig spoons or jigging Shad Raps in 7-12’ of cabbage. Tip-ups with medium shiners also work very well. Yellow Perch: Good-Very Good – Shallow weeds of 5-8’ using small minnows or minnow shaped jigs tipped with waxies. Whitefish: Good – A very few anglers walking out to the better whitefish spots finding fish in 40-60’ using Hali jigs or Flash Champs tipped with waxies or heads of small minnows. The light snow has blown off most lakes, which is a good thing as it allows the cold to firm up slushy areas. While snowmobile trails are open, they have NOT opened on lakes, and travel on any lake should be done with extreme caution. Forecast for lows over coming weekend in teens should help ice condition as should traffic this week to tread insulating snow down. Kurt Justice Kurt’s Island Sport Shop Like us on FaceBook

I’m not sure why, but the whitefish report just makes me happy.

NORTHWEST INDIANA

Capt. Rich Sleziak at Slez’s Bait in Lake Station texted:

Yes open today till 2 pm closed on Christmas back to regular winter hours 5 to 5 Thursday Lots and lots of groups out perch coho steelhead Coho at mouth of burns ditch and up river thru salt creek Skein and a variety of small spoons spinners and crankbaits all taking fish at the ditch Perch from cal park to near ford plant fish moving a lot but plenty being caught xl fatheads and perch Flys best Steelhead in salt creek and lil cal being had on voodoo jigs tipped with waxworms or butterworms best but some fish on spawn saks too A lot of all fish coho steelhead and perch perch perch being caught solid solid December fishing Merry Christmas to you and family thanks for all u do I’m texting this and dipping perch minnows right now

My kind of people, texting a fishing report and dipping minnows on Christmas Eve.

ROOT RIVER, WISCONSIN

The Wisconsin DNR usuaully issues updates on Tuesday or Wednesday at https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/lakemichigan/rootriverreport.html

SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN

Phil Schuman at Tackle Haven in Benton Harbor said boaters are getting steelhead in the river up to Berrien Springs; some walleye at Berrien Springs.

SHABBONA LAKE

Lakeside is closed until ice fishing. Park hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN LAKEFRONT

For the southern Lake Michigan reports from the Wisconsin DNR, go to https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/lakemichigan/outdoorreport.html#01

WOLF RIVER, WISCONSIN

Guide Bill Stoeger in Fremont texted:

Haven’t been out myself, but they’re taking 4 wheelers on Partridge getting perch, gills, and some northerns. The bite is good for panfish on the local bayous, bays, and channels that iced over early. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

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