I am a whore when it comes to driving by any type of water. I take my foot off the accelerator and frantically scan the water to get a feel for it because any fisherman knows he’d be a fool to pass up any first-hand information on a potential fishery. When I’m with my girlfriend it drives her nuts, especially when my eyes are still glued to the water 100’s of feet later. It’s much like how you process a preview before deciding if you’ll go see a particular film.
I started working in downtown Chicago a few months back. About a month ago, on my Metra train commute home, I was on the upper level as we passed over the Fox River. I could just see over a tree line which normally blocks my view. From the elevated seating on the train I noticed a mega tasty series of interwoven channels I had no idea existed. Even from my far vantage point I could see stumps, dead falls, and hard to access water a boat with a motor just couldn’t fish. I knew it had perfect pontoon potential (intentional alliteration is an idiosyncratic quirk of mine).
The Fox by me is a place where people go to play with their water toys, and fisherman go to the dams or parks to sink 50 lbs of lead into the riverbed with a series of interwoven lines that even a contortionist couldn’t get through. In all fairness, they’re just trying to put food on the table, but it leaves zero room for bass or pike anglers to cast a lure. What I’m trying to say is this was an exciting local find for me and I was eager to see if it had any potential…it did. There was so much structure and channel options, I realized this “poke around” type of outing would take a full day to cover correctly but I had other commitments. The early hours yielded some good bass action on top. Shortly after, I switched to my 6wt and got into a respectable pike with the tried and true chartreuse/white Clouser. I’ll spare the cliches but boy was it fun. I couldn’t boat the damn thing despite my best efforts without a net, but I got a few crappy photos. What happened next was weird and a lot of fun. I was working the shallows with the same weighted Orange/Black Dahlberg the bass were into earlier and landed 3 Channel Cats in a span of 20 minutes. They were solid takes and fought like they always do…hard the first minute, low and heavy the second, and then they’re spent. A catfish on the fly was a first for me. Boats whizzed by all morning until I left at Noon. I was very happy that no fisherman seemed interested in this area despite the ideal conditions. During low water I bet some of the shallower spots turn into exposed muck.
