Chicago fishing: Ice coming finally (eventually) and lakefront surprises

It’s still all perch basically and some waiting and praying for ice to go ice fishing.

Thought I’d share a photo of the snow king.

Hi Dale. This is Sey Jay from Skokie. As you may remember, I always target steelies in the winter. This morning I fished the end of Fullerton Lagoon floating cooked shrimp and skein. Most of the biters were small stocked bows that were tossed back. I finally had a bite on skein where the fish had weight when I set the hook. It turned out to be a 4-5# king. Not a large fish by any measure, but it is an unusual catch for this time of the year.

Hey Dale, just wanted to pass along some nice pictures. My good friend Gary Gecas caught these at Navy pier this morning on a deep diving crank bait and a swimming/jigging blade bait.

It’s still all perch basically and some waiting and praying for ice to go ice fishing.

Navy pier and 87th street slip for shore anglers is hit or miss and hour to hour. Seems to be small 1 hour feeding times for these perch. Some days at sun up some days mid day.

The bite for boat fishermen fishing in 55 to 60 ft of water north of Gary light is tougher than it has been but still perch being caught when weather allows boats out there.

Well we continue to get closer to the start of our Northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin ice season. The snow won’t help if it’s heavy, the very cold temperatures in the 10 day forecast will. At this point I will be happy if we get to ice fish 4-6 weeks.

Hey Dale,

Winter is here! I checked conditions today on a few lakes. The larger lakes have 30% open water. The winds from the last two fronts that produced snow pushed all the skim ice to the east. Wind shelter smaller lakes and ponds are locked up with thin ice. The ice is so thin mallards are going through in spots! Shorelines with in flows are open as well. The extended forecast is looking very good past Tuesday. It won’t be long.

. . .

TTYL

Ken Husker O’Malley

Husker Outdoors Waterwerks fishing team

I haven’t heard any good reports from bass anglers this year, but the folks chasing crappie and catfish have done well. Finding the old ditches that are now underwater and fishing the bottoms for catfish or the vertical sides for crappie seems to be the strategy.

Happy New Year Dale! Fishing with my grandson Quinn and granddaughter Brianna from Naperville. Seatrout were active on slow moving jigs and suspend jerk baits in 64 degree water in shallow water of Ft, Myers Fl. G. Peters

Fishing Report – 1/8/2024

Mike Norris

Big Green Lake: there are still a handful of boat anglers chasing walleyes on Big Green, but shore anglers report excellent walleye catches at night. The best areas to fish from shore include the inlet on County A and the shoreline adjacent to Lawson Drive in the City of Green Lake. Nonetheless, boat and shore angling should cease with a winter snowstorm forecasted for early this week. We may receive 8 to 14 inches by mid-week. Then, by week’s end, our high temps will only be in the teens, and we will see single-digit temps at night. Next week, I should provide my first ice fishing reports for South Central Wisconsin lakes.

Brown trout fishing doing very good trolling the harbor gap in am using yellow birds and working close to light houses . Some boats catching 2-3 browns in less than a half hour ! Saw a shore fisherman catch his limit of browns before 10am, this morning casting off South rocks near lighthouse !

Hi Dale,

. . .

As far as the casting part of our cast and blast, I opted for a Lake Michigan tributary instead of a just-opened trout stream: a lot of snow had fallen overnight, and I wasn’t sure how roads to the more remote streams would be; better to fish the trib that I was certain I could reach. Early January and a consequential Packers game about to begin, I was certain I would have the river to myself, but that turned out to not be the case. A fair number of other anglers were out, including a guide and client floating the river in a drift boat-not something one expects to see this time of year. I didn’t see anyone hook a fish while I was there, but conditions are still very good: not too cold (at least not until later this week) and good water levels; I’m sure there are still decent numbers of fish in the system.

Fishing Report – 1/8/2024

Mike Norris

. . .

Lake Michigan: Anglers fishing the harbor at Port Washington, WI, from boats and in kayaks, reported excellent catches of brown trout this past week. Trolling crankbaits accounted for a majority of the fish caught.

Ice continues to build here in the Northwoods. We have been fortunate to be just north of the heavy snow falling on the lower ¾’s of the state, this will keep the insulation off the lakes up here and allow more ice to build.

Walleye: Very Good-Good – Low light level times best using shiners amongst cabbage flats of 8-12’ in the mornings. Switch to outside weed edges (12-16’), off-shore humps of gravel/rock using suckers on tip-ups or jigging Raps, Rippin Raps, Z-Darters or Tikka Minnows towards and right after dusk.

Crappie: Very Good-Good – Better reports from anglers fishing basins of 22-27’ using tip-downs baited with rosies or crappie minnows or jigging Kenders T-Rips, Kastmaster spoons or Clam Tikka Flash tipped with waxies. For Crappies still holding in weeds (10-14’ Narrow leaf cabbage), Little Cecil spoons, Euro Tackle Z-Vibers, Kenders K-Rips and tip-down/minnow set ups all working well.

Northern Pike: Very Good-Good – Lots of good action and some nice Pike in the 8-12’ of weeds. Big shiners and suckers as per usual with fish to 34 reported this weekend. A pair of anglers jigging Raps and Chubby Darters on thin wire leaders reported fun action working baits at weed tops in 8-10’.

Bluegill: Good – While most reports were of good numbers, but lots of sorting for size, a few anglers did better by leaving the crowds behind. Most action in 8-12’ weeds using #3 and #4 tungsten jigs tipped with waxies, spikes and the rare moussee. Others finding BIG Gills (10-11) over mud basins in 20-25’ of water using small tungsten jigs with hair, tipped with moussees. Anglers targeting these big Gills using select harvest (and sneaky approaches) to maintain these populations of such special fish.

Yellow Perch: Good – While not the numbers (or the effort), nice Perch (9-11) in shallow weed flats of 6-9’ on jigs shaped like small Gills (Z-Vibes, K-Rips, T-Rips) tipped with waxies. Also a few reports of Perch starting to show over mud (14-18’) on wigglers presented on Hali style spoons.

Largemouth Bass: Good – Temps above 20 degrees seem to be best for Largemouth. Some very nice fish to 20 caught this past week, mostly by anglers targeting Pike or panfish in 6-12’ weeds.

Smallmouth Bass: Good – Rarely seen in the winter, but providing some added fun for anglers, especially those jigging for Walleyes over gravel/rock humps. Fun on a jig rod.

With light snow and cold temps ice thickness is coming along nicely. Most anglers reporting 6-8+. We are seeing more ATV, UTV and snowmobile use on the lakes. Still use caution on the big lakes (Fence, Trout, Big Crawling Stone, Tomahawk) as these were still open just two weeks ago and are just now getting 2-4’s of ice reports.

While snow is still a concern at this stage, forecast show temperature lows below zero and highs in the single digits for Sunday (1/14) thru Wed (1/12) that should put some nice finishing touches on our lakes and get us into the 12 plus range by the following weekend.

Upcoming Tournaments

Feb 10th – 22nd Annual Plum Lake Ice Fishing Tournament – Plum Lake

Kurt Justice

Kurt’s Island Sports Shop – Like us on Facebook

It’s still all perch basically and some waiting and praying for ice to go ice fishing.

Navy pier and 87th street slip for shore anglers is hit or miss and hour to hour. Seems to be small 1 hour feeding times for these perch. Some days at sun up some days mid day.

The bite for boat fishermen fishing in 55 to 60 ft of water north of Gary light is tougher than it has been but still perch being caught when weather allows boats out there.

With the colder temps coming at the end of the week it’s getting some folks excited that ice fishing might happen soon.

The river was still open yesterday, 3 of us caught nearly 40 walleye. I do think open water fishing is over. The forest for the weekend and early next week is for highs in the single digits, and lows below zero. Should make good ice if we don’t get too much snow