Chicago Perch Fishing Report, Early June

Got out to the wall this morning at around 4:45. The bite turned on very strong around 5:15, lasted until just before 6:00. A couple of the gentleman to my south had easy limits, I had trouble getting on them for some reason, the smaller shad-raps they were using must have just been the ticket this morning.

Gave my couple keepers to a friend of mine to add to his stringer. I saw a couple of 14" jumbos landed with huge shoulders. They almost looked like walleye (in size and proportion) really incredible. I'd love to get a couple like that for photographs.

Wind is looking unfavorable again for the next few days. Anytime the wind is south-west, west, or west-northwest get out there and get them while they're here. It would be nice to get a good week of west winds so we could all get out there and tackle them before the season closes at the end of the month.

See you on the sea wall!

Grand River Michigan, Sturgeon Poacher

Some news from just across lake Michigan for you this afternoon. Earlier this week a man in Michigan snagged a 5-foot lake sturgeon, a photo from a bystander shows him with it on a blue stringer, he is also holding a large net.

He snagged the sturgeon in the tail, got it to shore, and proceeded to haul it to his truck and drive away, despite calls to release it. Sturgeon are endangered and may not be kept save a few waters in the mid-west. Many live to be over 100 years old and due to the size of this one, it can be determined that this was no young sturgeon.

Being a photographer my favorite part of this photo is that you can see the guy's blackberry taking a photo of the guy too. You can read the full story by clicking on the photo.

Chicago Perch Fishing Report, Shore Fishing

Anglers from shore should have a good shot this weekend at some great jumbo perch action. Wind's have been driving from the North East most of the week, making conditions lousy for perch.

It appears the winds of change are on their way though.

This map from, like most good things, NOAA animates forecasted surface winds. Click the photo to visit the site. This can be a valuable tool to figure out when water might clear up or when waves will be favorable, although they have a wave forecast too that is normally very accurate. In this case it will help me decide when to head out to the walls because I'll know when that warm surface water will take off toward Ludington and I can get back on top of perch without a boat.

I was out yetserday around noon when it was still overcast here in Chicago and was able to land a few smaller perch, this gives me hope that even while conditions were absolutly aweful there were still perch to be found. My freezer needs stocking and I'm in search of at least a 14" perch, just for a personal best.

See you on the sea wall this weekend.

The Super Rooster Tail, a new favorite

I've done a LOT of fishing with spinners... both in-line and the kind with the skirts. For a long time I've liked roster tails for a couple of reasons, I like how you can run them deeper, making casting in lakes and deep holes a possibility, as well as that hackle pulse that seems to land fish.

I do, however, like panther martins for their ability to keep spinning at such low speeds, I can hover this lure in the lightest of currents or in the slowest of retrieves

Another thing I enjoy about both of these spinners is something that makes them very different. The classic panther martin comes in very few colors, and to tell you the truth I rarely buy anything but the yellow with black dots or the black with yellow dots. I've tried one of the new iridescent hologram bladed ones and have landed a couple of little browns with it, but I'm not that crazy about it.

So I've found something that isn't widely available but is worth looking for. The super rooster tail.

I thought this thing would be use to throw up at weed lines for bass or drift through deep holes on the sunniest days where trout don't like showing themselves. Since it is early in the year I've not yet had the chance to do those but at a lake that I knew could produce northern pike, I decided to tie her on and see what she was made of.

After landing 3 northern pike in the mid twenty inch range I realized how well built this lure is. I thought the safety-pin like design might just bend out upon a big fish putting the pressure on the metal. Not the case.

Additionally I like the double hook instead of the treble. It makes for a good hook set without a painful retrieval from the mouth of a big northern. Treble hooks have a higher chance of getting both top and bottom jaws locked together.

I'll buy more of these as soon as I can find them, they can be worked slow, the blade keeps spinning even if the lure is only moving on the vertical, it just flutters away, calling in the fish.

This is Fly

I stumbled upon a fly fishing magazine today via another site. You can view the whole magazine online 1 spread at a time. A lot of the type is pretty cool and all the photographs of big browns and rainbows makes me wish I had my own personal plane and a bottomless bank roll to fly around the world and trout fish.

Go ahead and click on the photo and it will take you to This is Fly, you can check the magazine out there.

The Chicago Trout Bum

Today I'll point you to the blog of a fellow angler and new friend of mine, David H.

David works at a local fly shop here in Chicago and when it comes to fly rods, fly equipment, and technique this is the guy to go to.

His blog, The Chicago Trout Bum, often includes up to date information on local fly fishing waters and includes submitted photographs from readers. I check in over there at least once a day and might encourage you to do the same.

Kingfishers are Aptly Named

Recently I was fishing a branch of the willow river in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. I was joined in my pursuit of a breakfast of fish by a kingfisher. He perched in the tree above my little hole and patiently waited. I had nearly forgotten about my like minded avian friend when suddenly... A cannonball dropped from the tree and entered the shallow riffles above the hole.

It emerged from the water with a fish in its beak. It flew downriver laughing at me as it soared by. I have seen kingfishers do their thing before, but never in such close quarters.

I stumbled upon this article (click on the image above to access it) with some beautiful photography of kingfishers in Europe fishing for meals in cold clear water. I'm a bit jealous as a matter of fact, this high speed photography is really something. Enjoy it.

Harbor Fingerlings

While out at the harbor mouth today just north of Downtown Chicago targeting perch I ran into something unexpected.

Using a crappie rig with #6 Aberdeen hooks rigged with a small white tube jig on the bottom and raw shrimp on the top hook I started getting little nibbles. This instantly put me in a good mood as I thought I stumbled upon a school of perch first thing in the morning. The sun was just coming up and I was missing hook sets left and white. I wasn't sure what was down there nibbling so I was eager to pull one up.

It wasn't long before I hooked into one and pulled it up to the wall. Up came an alewife on my top hook, or so we thought. Instantly noticing the green/red hue of the fish, and the trademark little vertical footballs running down the side of all the little salmonids we realized what I had caught. A fingerling Chinook Salmon. He was swiftly returned to the lake, 2 more were landed in the next 5 minutes, must have been a big cloud of the stockers that haven't left the safety of the harbor yet.

Couldn't find the perch this morning, but 3 little salmon made up for it in beauty hands down. It was an early morning on the cold lake Michigan. North-East Winds are no good for perching...

Rush, Willow, Race, and Kinni

Trout, Trout, Trout...

I love them, I do. There isn't much to say besides I got out as much as I could whether it meant only getting 3 hours of sleep so I could get it in, or taking a new trout fisherman on an hour drive to get him his first trout.

The willow is full of suckers, I've never seen anything like it actually, there was one run leading out of a hole that must have had a couple hundred suckers, all spread out, looked like a mine field on that slow sandy run, and the hold had dozens upon dozens of them drifting a foot under the surface in crystal clear blue. I'm disappointed that I left my camera at home as I wanted a light load for a bit of a hike.

The fish were much harder to come by this time around but I ended up with 20 something browns, 3 beauty brookies, and 8 stocked rainbows.

Biggest brown was 15". I'm incrementally working my way up, inch by inch.

Took a friend and his girlfriend to the Rush, we got him his first 10" brown pretty quickly, I ended up with around 10 fish. They were tough to stalk that sunny, warm day. To top it off we ended up being upstream of the Rod and Gun club, with it between us and our car when a whole parking lot full of shooters started shooting clays over the river... I've never seen a hole fill with trout like I did that afternoon. Every trout downstream got spooked up by the hail of shotgun fire. Fish were filing in to this deep hole like someone rang the dinner bell, only in this case they all wanted nothing to do with the dinner I had to offer.

Here's my friend Theo, proud of the first fish of the year for him. As you can see, it was a beautiful day to be out, the horesflys agreed with that as well, as they were out in force.

Kayaking for Northerns

I've been wanting to try my hand at Kayak fishing for a while now, this Memorial Day weekend provided a great chance to do just that. I was at a lovely lake in Northern Minnesota which will remain un-named, one rainy, overcast afternoon I had the chance to throw the Kayak on the rack and take it to a nearby, smaller, and even more un-named lake.

After making two trips from the car to the water, one with the Kayak on my shoulders, another for my rods, (both fly and spinning) and my paddle, tackle, etc... I was ready to go and eager to find some potential northerns.

To make a long story short... I fished for two and a half hours and landed 20 Northern Pike, and 1 incidental largemouth. I'm not really one for targeting bedding bass. I'd just as soon them do their thing and make more bass for me to fish for in summers to come.

I'd have REALLY liked to swing some flys into gear and wrestle with 9 pounds of submarine diving northern pike on my 8 weight. It was really windy and I was having trouble being so low to the water. I did get to test out my northern pattern that I tied by the fireplace this winter, longing for a day on this small lake hunting those toothy, slimey snakelike Northern Pike.

I was a fantastic day, and I returned the next morning, to land 5 more bass and 26 more northerns in another couple of hours on the water.

The highlight of the whole trip was a northern that actually jumped out of the water and grabed onto the back treble of my X-Rap just after it leaving the watter, it made it something like 20" out of the water to get this thing. The X-Rap is my new favorite lure for agressive game fish like that. Hands down. I also worked a small rostertail spinner bait which I think will come in mighty handy for some other uses this summer and fall. Larger spinner baits worked as well as inline spinners, yellow semed to be the hot color, and gold blades produced much more than silver ones.

All in all a really fun experience, I'm definitly heading back in the summer with my fly rod, I'm determined to get one on my big red and yellow streamer or my little crawfish patern.