Midwest Fishing Report: Rivers section

This high water is getting really old. Last week the river was a mess and worth ignoring. Now it is slowly receding, and the fishing is slow. However, some anglers are finally back fishing and enjoying mixed results. Flows are at 1900 CFS, and the gauge is at 4.9 which is still too high for any safe wading. Clarity is poor, and water temperatures are in the range of 50 to 55 degrees. Majority of the fishing is currently taking place from shore. Anglers targeting shoreline slackwater areas, and backwaters are enjoying a mixed bag of bass, channel catfish, northern pike, and panfish. Fish are few, but those who are investing their time are being rewarded the most. Live bait drifted beneath floats are catching, as are shallow running crankbaits being bounced off the wood and rocks. In addition, spinnerbaits and in-line spinners slow-rolled through the current seams, and jigs and plastics being dabbled are producing. Meanwhile the creeks are most fishable at this time, and should be turning on by this weekend. Salt Creek is almost completely wadeable (where possible) the entire distance from Busse Lake to the DPR mouth. I haven’t been able to fish it yet this year but a few crappies and largemouth bass are being found tight to shore. Water clarity isn’t bad either and the temperatures likewise. You can bet I will be spending some time in the next few days fishing here.

Catfishing continues good, esp. at night on *minnows*cheesebaits *crawlers. Walleye fair. In Indiana, near shorelines, mouths of ditches on *jig and minnow *jig and crawler *small spinners. Same in Illinois, esp. where river is at top of river bank.

Fishing Report The water conditions kept angler effort fairly low over the past three days. Most of the fishermen were concentrating at the Horlick Dam and downstream just into Quarry Lake Park. Although fishing was pretty slow with most fishermen unable to hook up with steelhead, a few were caught with the best fishing on Sunday near sunset. On Sunday the anglers fishing here were able to hook into a few nice steelhead but many were lost and success was limited to a few people. The best catch came from one angler who was able to land four nice steelhead. The largest was a eight pound female Chambers Creek. The other harvested steelhead included a 7 pound male, a 5.5 pound female, and a 3.5 pound male Ganeraska. Three of these harvested fish had the weir’s upper caudal fin clip. They were all caught using a medium sized multicolored wet fly with a dark body and a bright red and white tail. The fishing downstream was pretty slow for the few anglers that were on the river. Anglers were fishing a few segments on Colonial Park and downstream through Lincoln Park. Most anglers were unable to find any steelhead in the unfavorable water conditions. Fishermen were using a variety of baits from flies, spawn sacs, and spinner baits. Few steelhead were caught while anglers incidentally caught a lot of spawning white suckers.