Posts tagged Hidden Lake

Hopefully, everyone enjoys the new look of the blog. I promise that this will be the last change for a little while…..that is unless this one takes too long for most people to load.

On June 18th, I had a little more time than usual, so I decided to make the trip out to Independence Grove, in Lake County. I was not expecting too much with a high skies day. This lake, however, does give up a lot of fish and some of decent size when the conditions are right. It is a catch and release only lake that only allows its very expensive rental boats to cover the offshore areas. The weeds at IG normally are pretty thick by the end of June. They can be tough to fish unless you go over the top of them, or get heavy, and plow through them. On one rod, I had a watermelon green Senko T-rigged for weed pockets. On the other, I had a Zara Spook. I worked some of the shallower shoreline near the parking lots, but no fish were found. As I headed to the back of the lake, there was a little channel connecting to portions of the lakes. In the channel, the slightest breeze was producing current. The current pushed right upon a weed edge. It was the best spot I had found so far. It only took two casts before I was able to have a fish on.

I ended up staying for the better part of the morning, but still could not hook into anymore fish. I constantly changed baits from cranks to plastics to swimbaits. IG is just a very hard place to fish with clear skies and little wind. While it holds big fish, I do not know if it is worth the time or the gas money to hit it again before the fall.

On June 22^nd and 26^th, I hit Hidden Lake Forest Preserve. I recently purchased some Rage Toads and was anxious to give them a go. On those days, they produced strikes and blow ups. I was unable to hook up with a fish. I think it was either because I set the hook to early or my rod did not have enough backbone to drive it through. Either way, both of these are issues that I will have to resolve.

On June 30^th, I once again returned to Hidden Lake. I could not go in the evening, so I had to make the best of an overcast day. I had a few small blow-ups throughout the late morning. Finally, after days of casting, I was able to hook up with a fish. The fish hit the frog right as it passed over a lily pad in above 2 feet of water.

On July 2^nd, I decided to give up the topwater bite for a while, especially during the day. I decided to put on a 3-inch watermelon Senko, at Mayslake, in Oakbrook. It produced the only fish of the day.

July 3^rd, I was able to get out once again during the day. The bait of choice was a dark blue 6-inch, Yum Dinger. I was able to hook up with this decent bass on one of my first casts. After that, I had a few ticks, but no more fish.

The last day of this blog post, July 5^th, was a pre-frontal condition day. Storms were ready to blow through hard and the rain was drizzling in and out. I got a ton of explosions on topwater, but once again, the frogs proved to have a low hook-up ratio. The weeds at this pond made it almost impossible to fish anything else. I did get some sweet looking pictures of the front pushing through.

Year to Date:
25 Trips
15 Keeper Perch (Largest 11 inches)
37 Largemouth Bass (Largest 15 inches)
3 Coho Salmon (Largest 18 inches)
29 Crappies (Largest 10 inches)
3 Bluegill Family Fish (Largest 8 inches)