Bluegill, redear and bass
spawning in Logan County

Grab your pole and can of worms

[JUNE 17, 2000]  Because June is family fishing season for many anglers in Logan County, Out and About today features a fishing update from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, a fishing tip, and a recipe. Submit your fishing reports, pictures, recipes or funny fishing (must be true, nothing fishy) story. Send to ldn@lincolndailynews.com

To start with, we contacted the experts, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, to find out what is happening with fishing in our county, and just beyond.  They reported the following:

Most of the small lakes in the area have bluegill, redear sunfish and largemouth bass spawning right now with the channel catfish to follow shortly.  Now is the time to be out on the lakes fishing for these species.

 

 

The following should have good-to-excellent fishing right now: Mt. Pulaski Park District Lake, Lake Williamsville, the lakes at Jim Edgar/Panther Creek State Fish and Wildlife Area, Kincaid City Reservoir, Virginia City Reservoir, Ashland City Reservoirs. 

In addition, farm ponds should be "hot" right now, but they are privately owned and will require permission.  On the large reservoirs, Lake Sangchris, Springfield, Clinton, and Bloomington, for example, the crappie have slowed down but the bass should still be pretty good.  

[Randy Baker, and son, Cole, of Emden, caught this mess of bluegills at Weldon Springs. They used night crawlers.]

Where to catch 'em and 
what they’re hitting on

§         White bass are hitting on minnows, small spinners, and small jigs. There are reports they are being caught at the Illinois River below the Peoria Lock and Dam, and Lake Springfield near the warm water discharge.

§         Striped bass are hitting on large minnows, crankbaits, spinners, and jigs. They are hitting at Clinton Lake now.

§         Smallmouth bass are hitting on crayfish, small crankbaits, spinners, and minnows. They ar e active at Powerton Lake near points and current breaks.

§         Largemouth bass are hittng on plastic worms, jigs, spinners, crankbaits, and minnows. They are reported to be biting at Dawson Lake, Clinton Lake, Weldon Springs, and the Illinois River.

§         Crappie seem to have slowed down or stopped. The few crappie being caught hitting on minnows at Sangchris Lake, Spring Lake, Banner Marsh, Anderson Lake, and the Illinois River.

§         Channel catfish seem to be hitting on shad, chicken livers, night crawlers, shrimp, and stink bait. They are being caught at Banner Marsh, Dawson Lake, Lake Springfield, Mackinaw River, and Powerton Lake.

§         Bluegills are reported to be hitting on night crawlers, wax worms, and crickets. They are reported to be hitting at Weldon Springs, Dawson Lake, and Anderson Lake.

(To top of second column)

Fishing tip

For bass fishing, since the water temperatures are in the 70's, a good bait to use is disturbance baits such as poppers and imitation frogs. These types of baits attract bass by creating sound and vibrations on the water's surface. This will be more effective on calm waters than when the wind has stirred up the water. 

How to fix 'em after you catch 'em

Fish In A Bag

6 lbs. fish (catfish or what you or your spouse has caught that day)

1 lb. butter

1 tsp. mild or hot sauce or soy sauce (if you want)

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

juice of 2 lemons

juice of 2 limes

1 C. wine

1 tsp. salt

Salt and pepper the cleaned fish. Shake 1 tablespoon flour inside a large cooking bag. Place fish in the bag. Heat all the other ingredients together. Pour them into the bag. Close the bag and punch about 12 little holes on the top of the bag. Bake according to bag's instructions. You can serve this over rice when done or serve with red potatoes.

 

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Fishing where eagles soar

[JUNE 15, 2000]  Put a thousand miles between you and the news, a thousand miles between you and the phone, a thousand glorious miles between you and the seemingly endless demands you’ve left behind, and you’ll get an inkling of why it is so wonderful to spend a week with your buddies in remote Northwestern Ontario. It’s not all about the fishing, though the fishing is by any standard quite good. No, it’s about the very real possibility of finding a place which has not yet been lined with endless concrete pathways, fast food chains, shopping malls and other money-milking distractions. It’s about finding a place so remote, so uncluttered, so beautiful and – above all – so quiet, that you might somehow in the process of going fishing have half a chance to discover something new about yourself. I think Thoreau would have liked Northwestern Ontario.

Don’t get me wrong. We wouldn’t have gone to Canada had there been no prospect of catching any fish. No. We are, after all, fishermen, and this was our excuse for getting away in the first place.

 In fact, I have a theory about this. It sounds a little redneck, but hear me out. Men – at least some men – bond around meat. Think of it. Duck blinds. Deer camps. Barbecue pits. Always pointing out their secrets on how to successfully bag a turkey, call a duck, sucker a walleye, baste a brisket, men bond around meat, alive or dead (quite often alive, then dead). It’s not that women aren’t allowed or wouldn’t have anything to offer. I suspect there are deer camps for women, barbecue pits where men aren’t allowed, walleye tournaments just for ladies. I just haven’t seen them yet. Nor is it that all men enjoy this. Nor is this the only way and certainly not the most significant way you’ll find guys bonding. In fact, it seems sort of barbaric. But isn’t it true? Men bond around meat.

 


[Neal's homemade chowder, a group favorite of the week]

 

So when Jack Getchel, Tom Seggelke, John Allison and I (all from Lincoln) left for Lake Kashaweogama early in the morning on May 20, we left to catch walleye and northern pike. We had been planning – always half the fun – for months. We left with more lures than we could ever hope to throw at them, more rods than were needed for the task. I even bought an eight-weight fly rod and some of the largest, ugliest flies I’ve ever tossed at a fish in my life. We left pulling two boats, several motors, minnow buckets, sonar and nets. We left – can you believe it? – with very little meat, and it’s not because we’re vegetarians. It was our task, after all, to chase down and catch the fish. It’s called venery (the art, act, or practice of hunting, and in this case, fishing). Bonding around meat.

 

 

When we got there the weather was warm and the bugs were out. There were dreaded black flies and huge mosquitoes. Our first weapon was "Off!", our first prey insects. Mercifully, the repellent worked. After setting up camp, we chased down plenty of walleye and feasted in Jack’s more-than-ample motor home on Jack’s more-than-generous portions of walleye and spuds.

 The next day, and several days to follow, turned out to be quite cold, very windy and soaked with rain showers. But the walleye – unusually large walleye for this time of year – cooperated. We caught them drifting. Casting. Trolling. We caught them on jigs. On minnows. On jigs and minnows. On crankbaits. Just about everything we threw at them worked. And this was the pattern throughout the cold spell. There are lots of hungry fish this time of year in Canada.

 

 

The northern pike, on the other hand, were hard to come by. The southern bays of this 12-mile, glacially carved lake produced very little, so we turned our attention to the shallowest waters of the northern bays, which tend to warm faster than the southern bays in the spring. During the last two days of the trip, in the tight, protected tip of a spring-fed northern bay roughly eight miles from our campsite, we caught a pair of 12-pounders – one on Friday, another on Saturday – and these turned out to be the biggest fish of the trip. Some years have produced fish twice that size, but given the weather conditions, we were happy with these pike.

 

(To top of second column in this article)

But it really isn’t all about the fishing. I mean what do you do when it’s freezing, or nearly so, and you’re a thousand miles from home, and it’s windy, and you’d prefer snow to the coldest rain you can remember? Fortunately, someone had a deck of cards, and it was amazing to witness the most terrifying venery of all – rummy. John, a junior guard (football) at Illinois College and all-around card shark, consistently beat up on Jack and Tom throughout the week. So determined were they to get revenge that at times I wondered why we’d come here in the first place. You can play cards in Lincoln, but you can’t catch northern pike. Still, they played and played. Lost and lost again. (Often, I was fly fishing while this was going on. I could take only so much of the carnage.) When you lose this much, fishing in the sleet doesn’t seem so bad. Jack and Tom fished pretty hard the last two days. John smiled a lot.

 


[Another failed attempt by Tom and Jack to beat John during their nightly game of rummy]

 

While in Canada, we saw a couple of black bears. We also spotted two moose, several beavers, and an osprey carrying a small fish squirming in its talons. There’s nothing quite like rounding a bend and seeing an enormous bald eagle fleeing its perch, and this happened at least twice. There were ducks everywhere – mallards, common mergansers, goldeneye, hooded mergansers, scaup, and black duck. The loud, rhythmic drumming of grouse was unmistakable, and of course the eerie sounds of loons filled the otherwise quiet night air. We did miss out on the northern lights this year, though we have seen them in past years. If you’ve never seen the lights, well, what can I say? Enormous shafts of iridescent green and red cascade across the northern night sky in a constantly shifting display of color and endless motion, reducing the beholder to absolute wonder.

 

 

Perhaps more amazing yet is the fact that not once in the entire week’s fishing did I ever see any boat on the water other than our own. I read on the Internet last night that you can catch fish at Clinton Lake in Central Illinois this time of year (and believe me, that’s true), but do it during the week. When the weekend comes, it is all but impossible for fishermen to compete with speedboats, jet skis and sailing vessels. But while in Canada, we had the entire lake to ourselves, and Kashaweogama is likely larger than the 5,000-acre Clinton Lake by a sizable amount. No, this was not a fly-in. We drove right to our campsite. The entire six days of fishing cost each of us about $350 (American).

 


[Tom and Neal proudly display 
their "twin" 12-pound northern pike.]

 

Kashaweogama is located off highway 599, about 90 miles north of Ignace, Ontario. We stayed on the grounds of The Saugeen Nation Indian Band. Chief Edward and his wife, Violet, charged us a marginal $8 (Canadian) a day to camp there. (That’s $8 for all four of us.) Our hosts were friendly and treated us with courtesy while visiting their grounds.

 


[Group photo with their fantastic
walleye catch of the day]

 

If you’ve a notion to visit a place that’s not littered with McDonald’s wrappers or cigarette butts, if you really have a taste for seeing large, wild animals someplace other than the zoo, if you enjoy catching northern pike or northern lights, you’d do well to look into Northwestern Ontario’s lake-rich wilderness. This place is extraordinary, and the fishing’s not bad. Not bad at all. Just be sure to take along a deck of cards in case it rains, and make sure that John Allison is nowhere to be found.

 

[Neal Windham]

 


Neal Windham's walleye chowder

I'm not too precise about this, but here goes.

In a large soup pot, fry four or five slices of diced bacon and drain most of the grease. Add a couple of diced medium onions and several good sized diced potatoes, together with celery, carrots, and a couple of cups of water. Simmer/steam the vegetables in the covered pot until they're tender. Next, add as much milk to the chowder as you like. The real secret is in the spices, added next. If you can get your hands on Tony Cachere's Creole Seasoning, add a tablespoon (you may prefer more at the table). If you can't get Tony's, then try a seasoned salt along with freshly ground black pepper. Don't let the milk boil. But when it's plenty hot, add a couple of pounds of boned, cubed fish (or any seafood). Allow this mixture to simmer about 15 minutes and you're good to go. Just don't overcook the fish. You may or may not choose to add a tablespoon of butter during this last step.

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