Illinois monster fishing??

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I Thank you! and agree, The comment was unwarranted!

:banhim:
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Mr.Firemouth;757259; said:
You know the moron comment has me feeling I need to explain further.

I grew up fishing in Northern IL. now I fish mainly southern IL. because I moved near St. Louis, MO. on the IL. side. After 28 years of fishing up north some places became apparent that they were top notch get em big sites to fish.

Hiedecke lake is off of I-55 in Marseilles CO. and is the cooling lake for that power plant. It is stocked with Channel cats, walleye, LM bass, Northerns, tiger muskie, and Hybrid Stripers( the big ones). These fish are trolled in 17' of water with either umbrella rigs or multiple lines on cannon balls and they are big! Check the state records for catches from this lake!

Every fall King Salmon, lake trout, big rainbows, all come into the harbours for the kings to spawn. Snagging is legal during this time. There are numerous big monster fish that can be hooked in the harbours. I fish at montrose or Belmont right from the concrete sidewalks. This is very good fishing!

Lake shabbonna has a muskie club that operates from this lake and works with the IDNR and has established a huge muskie fishery here. I have caught many Tigers here with big tackle. Boat rental is available. If you never fished for muskie and want to then this is a great place to go.

I fish the Mississippi at Lock and Dam 24 and at a spillway just south of I270.
Both of these spillways are great places to catch all kinds of fish from shore. I usually wade out to hip deep and cast upstream with a float and 30" of leader to avoid snags and then just let the float work back down stream until it is well past me. I can not tell you how many fish I have caught here. Too many!

The power plant at waukegan is another fish from shore site that offers huge salmon in the warm water discharges. the water rushes thru there pretty good and the best time to fish there is when the big lake is below 60F.

Right behind the Shedd Aquarium is a great place to fish for rock bass, yellow perch, and others. Again, the water is crystal clear thanks to zebra mussels so sight fishing is possible. It is alot of fun.

Busse woods off of H72 has a tail water from the reservoir that feeds the Salt Creek. This is a bass bonanza! Go further down the creek on the bike trails and you will hit Butterfield Rd. This is where 7 ponds form thanks to the Mc Donalds Corp. These ponds are on their property and the creek flows thru them so access is not available. What is important to understand is that Mc Donalds stocks these ponds with Tiger Muskie each year. These fish roam down stream and are fair game back on the bike trail!!! There is a spillway further down by 31st ST. near the Brookfield zoo. Here there is some great fishing also! Keep going south and you hit Joliet Avenue in Lyons, IL. Here there is a 22 ft spillway waterfall that offers incredible fishing in the straight away for the next 800 feet to the next spillway which is only 3ft. There is a ton of big fish and even more snags here. Keep going another 1,000 ft to the bend at the Riverside police station and swinging bridge(suspended pedestrian cable bridge) and there is another good spot that holds fish. Keep going further and you reach the mouth of the Des Plaines river where the 2 meet! Again, another great spot!

The reefs behind the old McCormick Place Expo center are awesome too! If you got a boat head out there!

The Fox Chain of Lakes on the Fox river is also a great place to rent a boat for the day and do some good fishing for walleye, northern, SM Bass, and yellow perch!

As usual make sure you have your IL. fishing license because they will check!
HTH, Rich
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I don't think it was unwarrented at all if you can show me one picture of yourself or someone in Illinois with a 35 lb. steelhead, Oh yeah you have to show me a 150 lb. cat well your at it to then I will take the comment back. I highly doubt that your state records are even close to that size class of fish. And for you to say that these size fish are really common is absoluetly ridiculous. So yes your a moron.
 
Mr.Firemouth;755334; said:
In the fall around Halloween the Rainbows hit the lake front at Chicago and again are all 35lbs plus!!! QUOTE]

This is really the part of your post I was talking about. It is incredibly uncommon for steelhead to get this large and for you to say that they all are 35 plus pounds is ridiculous. I did however over react and much of your other information was relatively accurate.
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I agree, when I posted it I couldn't edit. I really meant king salmons. They come in every fall all up and down the harbour and you can snag some really big ones there. I and my friends go down for about 2 weeks at night when I lived there and at least one of us would hook a king in that time frame that was every bit of 25+lbs or bigger!

If you never fished Illinois like I have you might really think I am a moron, but I did alot of fishing with Brian Atherns who was an editor of Bass'n magazine and wrote as Squiggy for Midwest Outdoors. I haven't talked to him in about 3 years now but we used to pre fish tourneys all over Illinois! He knew where to go and was seldom wrong!

There are a ton of big fish spots in IL, catching them is more about tackle choices and location, depth, and weather than anything else, but that is everywhere isn't it.

If you have a boat w/fishfinder that stores GPS location make a map each time out and record history, then you will see the patterns for that body of water and they will hold pretty consistent year after year. Someplaces I went to I didn't even use gps, I just knew where I was at. Vertical jigging works the area the fastest once you have the depth set. If they aren't stacked up then switch to trolling 1-2 feet above the area(so if they are at 15' troll at 13') and use the bouy markers so you can turn around and run the course again.

If you are fishing from shore fish one on a float and the other on the bottom and see what is hitting the fastest. If both are dead in a 15-20 min span then move 500ft and try again until you find where they are holding then take notes on the location. This spot will stay consistent also.

HTH, Rich
 
Kings make alot more sense. I have done a little fishing in IL mainly for skemenia, but the bulk of my skemenia fishing has been centered in Indiana.

I'll probaly be down there in early june to try and hook some summer steel.
 
I have a summer home on the Fox Chain O'Lakes and I have fished there my whole life. I never caught a smallmouth on the Chain. Plenty of largemouth, but no smallmouth. Now the fox river probably has them, just not the chain.
 
Its been awhile but I think it was Lake Marie on the chain(I am not sure) that we caught smallies while fishing for walleye. We were catching yellow bass that switched to perch and then we hooked up with 2 small mouths.
 
Mr.Firemouth;757259; said:
You know the moron comment has me feeling I need to explain further.

I grew up fishing in Northern IL. now I fish mainly southern IL. because I moved near St. Louis, MO. on the IL. side. After 28 years of fishing up north some places became apparent that they were top notch get em big sites to fish.

Hiedecke lake is off of I-55 in Marseilles CO. and is the cooling lake for that power plant. It is stocked with Channel cats, walleye, LM bass, Northerns, tiger muskie, and Hybrid Stripers( the big ones). These fish are trolled in 17' of water with either umbrella rigs or multiple lines on cannon balls and they are big! Check the state records for catches from this lake!

Every fall King Salmon, lake trout, big rainbows, all come into the harbours for the kings to spawn. Snagging is legal during this time. There are numerous big monster fish that can be hooked in the harbours. I fish at montrose or Belmont right from the concrete sidewalks. This is very good fishing!

Lake shabbonna has a muskie club that operates from this lake and works with the IDNR and has established a huge muskie fishery here. I have caught many Tigers here with big tackle. Boat rental is available. If you never fished for muskie and want to then this is a great place to go.

I fish the Mississippi at Lock and Dam 24 and at a spillway just south of I270.
Both of these spillways are great places to catch all kinds of fish from shore. I usually wade out to hip deep and cast upstream with a float and 30" of leader to avoid snags and then just let the float work back down stream until it is well past me. I can not tell you how many fish I have caught here. Too many!

The power plant at waukegan is another fish from shore site that offers huge salmon in the warm water discharges. the water rushes thru there pretty good and the best time to fish there is when the big lake is below 60F.

Right behind the Shedd Aquarium is a great place to fish for rock bass, yellow perch, and others. Again, the water is crystal clear thanks to zebra mussels so sight fishing is possible. It is alot of fun.

Busse woods off of H72 has a tail water from the reservoir that feeds the Salt Creek. This is a bass bonanza! Go further down the creek on the bike trails and you will hit Butterfield Rd. This is where 7 ponds form thanks to the Mc Donalds Corp. These ponds are on their property and the creek flows thru them so access is not available. What is important to understand is that Mc Donalds stocks these ponds with Tiger Muskie each year. These fish roam down stream and are fair game back on the bike trail!!! There is a spillway further down by 31st ST. near the Brookfield zoo. Here there is some great fishing also! Keep going south and you hit Joliet Avenue in Lyons, IL. Here there is a 22 ft spillway waterfall that offers incredible fishing in the straight away for the next 800 feet to the next spillway which is only 3ft. There is a ton of big fish and even more snags here. Keep going another 1,000 ft to the bend at the Riverside police station and swinging bridge(suspended pedestrian cable bridge) and there is another good spot that holds fish. Keep going further and you reach the mouth of the Des Plaines river where the 2 meet! Again, another great spot!

The reefs behind the old McCormick Place Expo center are awesome too! If you got a boat head out there!

The Fox Chain of Lakes on the Fox river is also a great place to rent a boat for the day and do some good fishing for walleye, northern, SM Bass, and yellow perch!

As usual make sure you have your IL. fishing license because they will check!
HTH, Rich
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This is great info.

I am new to the Chicago, IL area.

I have been to Hiedecke Lake 4 times now. I have always caught something decent.

I will probably check out the fishing behind McCormick place. It would be awesome to fish at night and have the city as a backdrop.

Can you tell me exactly where this location is? Can I park nearby and walk to it?

Thanks for the Info Firemouth - You are not a Moron - this is the kind of info anyone in Illinois or new to Illinois needs to know.

thanks.
 
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