Opening day is Sunday for Heidecke Lake and smelt netting on the Chicago lakefront.
SMELT
Smelt netting, once a great communal gathering on the Chicago lakefront, has devolved into a ritualistic retracing of memory. Lake Michigan Program fisheries biologist Steve Robillard said to expect rare occurrences. He suspects even the smattering of reports are more likely spottail shiners.
HEIDECKE
Walleye and crappie should be the key fish at the former cooling lake near Morris, with the occasional surprise of a big muskie or a decent hybrid striped bass.
Main surveys are done every other year, the last in 2016. Fisheries biologist Rob Miller said they had good distribution of walleye in that survey including lots of legal-sized ones.
“In theory, it should be good,’’ he said.
They are stocked every year.
“They can be tough to catch and I think the lake can be tough to fish,’’ Miller said. “It takes a little bit of time to pattern those walleyes and to be able to get on them with consistency you have to put in some time.’’
It took a long time for the stocking of crappie to take–stockings continue annually–but Heidecke has become a destination for crappie fishermen.
Heidecke is not a destination for muskie, but there are some beauts, including one of 47 1/2 inches, 35.6 pounds in the trap-net survey last spring.
The last stocking of hybrids was 20,000 1 1/2-inchers in 2016.
“Not like it used to be,’’ Miller said. “We just don’t see the big ones like we used. We used to get them 10 pounds plus. Those truly big fish, we just don’t see them any more.’’
He suspects that is related to Heidecke no longer being a cooling lake, the plant was decommissioned in 2004.
Expect the same on bass. There’s smallmouth in the 12- to 15-inch range. The percentage of larger largemouth bass slowly increases.
“They just seem to limp along,’’ Miller said. “We tried different stockings and it just didn’t seem to matter.’’
He is surprised that rooted aquatic vegetation never really took after the plant was decommissioned and the lake became, in essence, an ambient lake.
Channel catfish are doing poorly enough that Miller said, “We may be looking at restrictive regulations and stocking them.’’
Miller said the notoriously cyclical yellow bass–the state record was believed to swim at Heidecke–are on the downside now.
“Keep as many of those as you want,’’ he said. “There’s nothing wrong with eating them.’’
The lake opens daily at 6 a.m. at launch, 6:30 for shore fishermen, and closes at sunset.
WOMEN: Denise Gonzalez started a Facebook group “Women Anglers of Chicago and all Illinois.’’ Click here for more.
YOUTH HUNTING: Illinois’ first statewide spring turkey season for youth is this weekend.
YOUTH BASS: Buffalo Grove senior Tyler Lubbat and Minooka senior Alec Berens were named to the 2018 Bassmaster High School All-State Fishing Team for Illinois.
MWC: The Iowa team of Jeff Lahr and Jason Hancock, subbing for Tommy Skarlis, won the Masters Walleye Circuit opener on a snowy Saturday at Spring Valley. They were vertical jigging with a ringworm and minnow, primarily in Peru flats area of the Illinois River, and weighed limits both days to total 27 pounds, 9 ounces and earn $13,700. Their kicker was a 5-pound, 13-ounce walleye caught at 2:50 p.m. Saturday.
The Spring Valley father-and-daughter team of John and Jena Dalzot were second (26-12). David Kleszyk of Oak Brook Terrace and Dave Zurawski of Woodridge were third (25-14).
STRAY CAST: Odds for Loyola in the Final Four rank better than for smelt netters in Chicago.
