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Posts: 696
Location: Northern Illinois | Anyone fish or fished this lake? Want to give it a shot as it has been stocked in the past. Any lure preferences and presentations? Specific areas to target them?
Thanks |
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Posts: 26
| I have fished here four times. The first was early spring on the first hot day of the year in sun. Using a bucktail in the fallin trees straight north of the boat launch i had several follows and one musky hit and missed the hook set. None of the fish were big. The next 3 times were in early to mid summer and didnt see a thing. Here is what u need to know about this lake. For evry acre of water there are aprox 3 boats per acre. You will have other boats fishing within casting or on occasion spitting distance of you. This is not including dozens of recreational kayakers buzzing around, again some in spitting distance The primary forage is small shad carp and catfish.
If you live by it and want to work out a musky bug and want to wait up to an hour each way at the launch, then go for it. |
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| I havent seen pressure like that and I live close by it. Not much success for muskie but it sure is nice to go there. I wouldnt go on a saturday afternoon when its sunny and 80 degrees but a weekday sure is nice there. Give it a shot. |
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Posts: 78
| The nice part is that there are no motor boats, water-skiers, or jet skis allowed on the lake. There is a good population of muskies and there are certainly some real nice ones. Mid-upper 40" fish swim here. There are a lot of shad so the fish look healthy. It's worth your time to try this lake. |
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Posts: 696
Location: Northern Illinois | So do you think Shad colored baits seem to work best? Want to get a plano full of about 10-12 lures to use there. What types of lures work best? |
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| hmmm...I really wouldn't go out and buy a whole new tackle box for this "lake", it really isn't anything special or very exciting to fish by any means. There's some weeds at the opposite end of the boat launch that can hold fish in the spring and summer. Most of the shoreline areas are pretty void of structure and generally unproductive, done ok by the dam. A lot of guys like to troll baits mixed in with the suspended shad.
Again, not saying it isn't worth an occasional look but really not worth investing a lot of time in, imo. |
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| this is a fantastic lake year round. i can only recall two times i have been skunked out of about 20-25 trips. there were times where we would have an hour or two to fish after the hour and a half drive to get there and we boated anywhere from 1 to 4 fish. never caught one under 33 inches on this lake and only a handful over 36. there are bigger fish in there but i have not spent any time trolling or fishing around the shad. only offshore weeds and shoreline. there are some humps out in the middle that hold balls of shad year round. im sure the big girls are there with them. until there is a spillway beerier this lake will never put out fish 40 inches or better on a consistent basis. the proof to that is how shabbona and other lakes average size increased dramatically after this was done. unfortunately the 3 fish ive hooked that were def. all 42-44 inches have done the jump trick and threw the lures. if you want to catch a lot of fish in this lake start halfway down the middle and go towards the opposite end of the boat launch casting open water. |
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Posts: 968
Location: N.FIB | This lakes tough,just ask the flatlanders who have had a muskie league on it the past 2 yrs.I think only one fish was caught two yrs ago and a few fish last yr in league,its wort h a shot to try,just don't fish on the weekends,very busy in the warmer months from all the campers,lots of shore fisherman also |
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| there aren't many muskie fishermen there even on the weekends! the shorelines are pretty packed with bobber fishermen but most of the boating traffic is panfishermen, kayaks, or peddle boats. once they see the lures you are throwing they stay clear of you. the ONLY times i have ever fished this lake was on the weekend and pressure has NEVER been a problem. even fished a planned muskie outing with a fair amount of boats and it was never a problem. remember a good portion of the lake is a 8-10 foot flat. LOTS of "castable" water that is impossible to be fished within a days time. cast a bucktail or a crankbait at the shoreline or cast the shallow flat on the east end of the lake. it is not a tough lake by any means IMHO. |
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