Midwest Fishing Report: Rivers around Chicago fishing

To keep with your pike theme, feels more like the first week of October rather than the first week of August. That being said, over the weekend I invited my father to come join to me to throw some big baits for toothy critters on the Des Plaines. After losing about 2 or 3 of my lures, dad likes using a light setup, my father started getting into some pike. He had a couple violent shake offs before landing a nice one followed by a few hammerhandles. I was having a field day. I landed 6 pike and 3 large mouth bass in about 3 hours. One of those pike being an absolute beauty for the skinny, shallow, north section. Millions of bait fish were in the shallows, so we focused on the shallow water drop offs. Working every creek mouth, sand bar, and river bend. Afterwards I had to peal my 62 year old father from the kayak with a spatula and straighten him back out, he can only handle sitting in that little kayak once or twice a year.

Not Really a Fishing Report Average summer flow on the Fox is 750 cfs, give or take a few cfs. So far this year, at least since March, the river has yet to hit that mark. 2005, like 2012, was a drought year. The pattern after 2005 that set up was much like what is happening now. A couple of times a year the river dipped down to 750, then immediately went up again. This went on for 5 years and that pattern finally broke in 2011. Anyone that thinks wading around when the water is at 1500 cfs is no big deal doesn’t go where I go. I can go quite a few places at that water speed, but even at that flow there are times when I know I made a big mistake. It’s not the depth, it’s the flow and when funneled right it will knock you down. Right now there are massive bug hatches coming off the river. Eating those are huge schools of small bait fish, minnows I guess. Eating those are the smallies. It’s a smorgasbord out there right now. And there you are, throwing a piece of plastic in the water and hoping a fish will hit it. Fishing has been sporadic at best. Trick is to throw something out there and reel it in relatively quickly. If nothing results, crawl something painfully slow along the bottom. If you understand spots on spots, fish those. If none of those things work, you better be fishing an area with some outstanding scenery cause now you’re just out for a stroll down the river.

On the Menominee River smallmouth are in their summer pattern and they are hitting a variety of plastics. The topwater bite has been sporadic and if the weather stabilizes the bite will be consistent. The topwater bite is typically great in August. On High Falls Flowage the bite has been hot for smallmouth, largemouth and walleye.

Steelhead action has been great on the many rivers, inline spinners such as oslos in a wide variety of colors are taking fish, as well so are small plugs, spoons and spawn. . . . Walleye and small mouth still being caught in the river.