Midwest Fishing Report: Rivers section

I’m not sure I ever put down this part of my thought process before. I know I’ve hinted at it over the years. Not far from my house in Yorkville are 6 creeks, 5 of which I like to fish. This early afternoon (Tuesday) I had to do some running around that took me over 5 of them. They are all running a little high and all are muddy. This flies in the face of what usually happens after a rain. Usually the river takes forever to come down and the creeks go back to normal relatively quickly. And I go fish them. Just the opposite is true this time. At 3 PM on Tuesday when I’m writing this, the river gauge for the Fox River in Montgomery is reading 1330 cfs. It’s been dropping like a rock for the last couple of days and is doing a pretty good job of it today. The first of the 6 creeks I mentioned above is in Oswego, about 3 miles down stream from Montgomery. All of the others are even further down stream. In the same stretch of all these creeks are a number of no name ditches that always have water running through them. The four I drove over today were all running faster than usual and all were muddy. I think I take all of this into consideration when I’m deciding where I want to go fish, only somewhat subconsciously. I want to go fishing at the end of the day today if time allows. Based on the above info, I’ll go north of Oswego, but just south of Montgomery. The current flow can still knock you down if you get lazy and sloppy, but for the most part I can go pretty much anywhere I want. Fishing the creeks are completely out of the question. From a fishing standpoint, they don’t seem to react the same way at high and muddy levels as the river does. At least not where I go. Plus, the water is concentrated in very narrow channels and tree falls can span the whole width of the creek. This can make for some extremely dangerous situations that if caught up in one, you’ll be wondering if your waders sprung a crotch leak or did you just piss in your pants. Holes and cuts in creeks come up on you much quicker than the river and if you can’t see the bottom, I wouldn’t be walking around in there. And this is on sections of creeks I know like the back of my hand. Where I want to be in the river is down in Millbrook and Millhurst. These are both downstream of all the creeks and ditches. I’ve fished a few sections down that way and even at lower water levels it can get a little tricky. Going now with all that water from the creeks heading that way would be suicidal. So somewhere between Montgomery and Oswego is where I’ll go, if I go. In reality it took me all of 2 seconds to run all this info through my head and make that decision, probably less. I think after all these years I’m going to change my nickname from Waterdog. I think I’m going to go with OCD Angler, OCDA for short. No wonder I can’t sleep at night.

As of right NOW, river is going back down(Subject to more rain) In Indiana, Catfish good on gold fish *large golden roaches *nightcrawlers. Esp. good around Point, north of English Lake *Rt 39 & * *10 mile road. Open bayous throughout good for *catfish *pike *bass. Illinois: Momence good on catfish (baits above)*smallmouth & largemouth bass picking up on *crankbaits *live minnows *live and artificial plastic worms. Kankakee River State Park – In addition to catfish, some good sized smallmouth bass have been hitting. *minnows *crankbaits*jig & twister tails working. Wilmington Dam and Island Park–Mike at Angelo’s reported catches of some nice pike being caught. Minnows, spoons,large spinners work. Catfish good also.

The river came up about a foot with last week’s rain, but it’s dropping quickly. Still mostly catfish and carp being caught. A few nice flathead were caught with last week’s Cabela’s catfish tournament in Dixon. Some school age kids have been buying the goldfish and catching flatheads at the dam in the 10 # range.