Fishers are ‘crushing it’ on the Chicago Riverwalk

From 39 countries and 36 states, people are ‘‘absolutely crushing it’’ while fishing on the Chicago Riverwalk.

On Sept. 15, the Chicago fishing advisory committee met again after its summer hiatus.

After some 20 years of covering most of those meetings, I often grow frustrated with them. Other times, I clutch at touches of progress. This was one of those times.

Such as when Matt Renfree, a senior program specialist for the Chicago Park District, described the ‘‘Fishing at the Jetty’’ program at Wacker and Wells on the Riverwalk. The program, which has four staff members, has surpassed 11,000 people fishing.

‘‘We are absolutely crushing it down there,’’ Renfree said.

The program provides rods, reels and bait (and instruction, if needed). A special permit from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources allows anyone to fish. That’s a smart move by the IDNR.

‘‘We see many families come back and fish on the weekends,’’ Renfree said.

I love that there are plans to build a cabin by the Riverwalk.

Panfish are the main catch. The removal of almost 2,000 round gobies so far apparently has made a difference over the years.

‘‘Percentage of native fish is way up since reducing gobies,’’ Renfree said.

And he dreams of the program running late into the fall.

‘‘Next year, we will go even later into salmon [season],’’ he said. ‘‘If you are a 4- or 5-year-old kid and hook into a salmon, you will never forget it.’’

Dale Bowman

In other notes:

• The Urban Fishing Program’s Brenda McKinney said there will be an unexpected stocking of smaller channel catfish (8 to 10 inches) in the usual Chicago lagoons during September. The stocking comes from excess hatchery production. Otherwise, there was no catfish stocking in the lagoons this year.

• Vic Santucci, the Lake Michigan program manager for the IDNR, said they found only three young-of-the-year perch.

‘‘We were hoping for more since reports were coming up of schools of young perch,’’ he said.

They expect to have a public meeting, after years of a hiatus, on the Lake Michigan fishery in March. Santucci said the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant also hoped to restart fall meetings on Lake Michigan.

I checked with the IISG’s Peter Euclide, who emailed: ‘‘My goal is to have one in-person workshop and one virtual, both taking place in early to mid-November a couple days apart.’’

Greenback walleye

On Jim Tofte’s catch of a greenback walleye in June near the confluence of the Kankakee and Iroquois rivers, streams biologist Tristan Widloe emailed: ‘‘I’ve heard of greenback walleye in Lake Winnipeg [in Canada]. This would be the first I’ve heard of/seen that in the Kankakee.’’

Illinois hunting

Archery season for deer and turkey opens Saturday.

Wild things

Looks like a good fall for puffballs, considering the notes I received during the weekend.

Stray cast

Tom Brady suffering a humiliating loss to the Packers is like a hypothetical quandary of whether you rather would fall off a cliff or go over Big Manitou Falls.