Midwest Fishing Report: Rivers

Due to heat wave fishing is poor. River levels are at their lowest since last fall, and temperatures have turned into bath water at the 80-85 degree range. Get out and fish before sunrise, or else at sunset and into the nighttime hours. Prior to the heat, some good fishing was taking place during early mornings, and notable catches were being made, including a 40 inch class pike caught and released by Mike Leska, and John Guettler. However, that was nearly two weeks ago when the river had some more water, and was cooler. Here is that report: http://www.fishing-headquarters.com/fishcast/?p=2108 Most fish species are now relating to deep holes and pools with faster current and riffles as they seek cooler water with higher dissolved oxygen levels. Northern pike are somewhat active before sunrise and again at sunset, but catch rates are low; log jams and deep weeds are providing best action. Bigger fish are few and far between as they are trying to keep cool in the deep holes and channels with current; this warm water is near lethal for them. Fish in the 15 to 20 inch range are most abundant and hitting spinnerbaits and inline spinners. Largemouth bass, along with some smallmouths mixed in, are best around bridges, deep weeds, shaded shorelines, downed wood, deep rocks, channel edges, and areas with riffles and current. Most fish are small, but some up to 16″ are being caught on spinnerbaits, topwaters, buzzbaits, and crankbaits. Fish early or late. Channel catfish, bullheads, and carp seem to be less affected by the heat and high water temperatures as they are active and abundant everywhere. Lastly, some longnose gar are active further south around the Lockport & Joliet area, taking nylon rope lures and live bait.

The prevailing thought on fishing rivers during the summer when the water is low, is to dredge the bottoms of the deeper pools. On clear water rivers like the Kankakee, DuPage and the Apple, as well as all of the clear water creeks that feed all of the rivers around here, that’s exactly what I would do. The Fox River is a completely different story. The Fox River as of now is flowing lower than I’ve seen it in a good 5 years. Like usual, the clarity of the river is less than a foot. That’s what happens on the Fox during the summer. I’ve been out fishing 4 times in the past week. Each time I played around to see where the fish were hanging out. Though my ability to set the hook on a fish and land it has deteriorated, I’ve been getting on average 15 hits on each outing. I’m only landing a half dozen of them. One outing I concentrated primarily on walleye and didn’t do too bad. Because of the one foot clarity issue, none of the fish have been coming out of deeper water. All of the hits and fish caught have been coming out of water less than 2 feet deep. The water clarity is the reason. I’ve been seeing big schools of bait fish in the shallows. They don’t seem to get spooked easily because of the lack of clarity. Of course, everything comes in to feed on them. With the murky water, they’re less cautious about over head predators and they’ve been moving around quite a bit. Best fish the past week was a smallie that pushed the 19 inch mark. It was in shin deep water out in the middle of the river. I only fish the last 3 hours of the day now. I can’t be bothered getting up early and the sunsets seem to last longer than the sunrises. I’ve noticed that the bulk of the hits have been coming during the last hour of daylight when things are just starting to get darker. That’s also a magical time to be out. I’ve seen deer crossing the river from island to shore. Great horned owls are calling up and down the river. The swallows are going nuts over the river feasting on the bug hatches. And the sunsets have been beautiful.

Sunday with the heat and bight skies ran into very aggressive fish taking topwaters in shallow clear water. I also got some on rattlebaits in riffle areas. Monday with clouds and drizzle only 1 fish on topwater, rattlebaits and crankbaits in riffle areas and around mid stream humps.

Dale went out Friday, Saturday and Sunday . Fished from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. River is in excellent shape and all three days we caught a total of 37 cats ranging is size front 3.0 to 7.0 lb. Last night was the best as I pulled out back to back 7.0 cats right in front of a party of people who were picnic ing and just enjoying the weather. Cats love the hot weather.

In Indiana and Illinois, good catfish throughout on *minnows*chicken liver*cheese baits. Some Pike being caught around drifts, tree lined banks on larger minnows *spoons. Mike Lee, Frank’s Bait, Momence, reported in addition to catfish, smallmouth bass are good on live bass size minnows *Mepps Spinners. Diana at Kankakee River State Park reports *smallmouth bass in riffle areas on *live minnows *rattle baits. Catfish also good on *minnows *cheese baits. Wilmington area: Seth at Angelo’s reports many fishing in wadeable areas(be very cautious when wading). Jig and bass size minnow good for smallmouth bass.

River is dropping a few inches a day, and getting low. Catfish are biting early morning, and late night. Not many fishing over the weekend with the heat, and Oregon Trail Days going on in town.