Oh, the joy of big blues (catfish) at LaSalle Lake

Darryl Turner found big blue catfish Sunday at LaSalle Lake.

“The big one, I missed it when he slammed it, but I reeled down to it,” said Turner, king of fishing blues from shore at the cooling lake south of Seneca. “Out of the blue, it came in and slammed the bait.”

That’s big as in 30 pounds.

He primarily used shad, because he only caught one bluegill for bait.

He caught 11 smaller blues (five around 10 pounds, the rest 3-5 pounds) before the 30-pounder. After that he caught a 17-pounder.

“I caught six or seven when floating [bait] under a bobber, but they were smaller; so I went back to the bottom,” he said.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times.

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