Posts tagged Hoffman Dam

All week, the weather had been beautiful and the lakes and rivers were beginning to come alive with fish.  We were getting rare spring days that popped up into the upper 50′s.  Everything was indicating that fishing was going to be fantastic this weekend.  Then, a weekday worker’s nightmare occurred, which seems all too common in the springs of Chicago.  I finally had a weekend where I could get out with my friend, Todd Fisher, and a big time cold front, with lots of rain, rolls in right before the weekend.

The rivers were already pretty high.  The fishing had been hot.  The last thing we need was the Des Plaines River to approach flood stage to make wading near impossible.  We woke up on Saturday morning to find our beautiful spring week had turned into 30′s and snowy. We were still itching to get out bad, so we packed our gear, stopped at Lyon’s Bait and Tackle (a new bait shop in Lyons that has a helpful owner) and we headed to our favorite stretches of the river.

When we arrived, we immediately saw people fishing in some of our favorite spots.  We headed down river a ways looking for eddies caused by near shore rocks and downed logs.  Todd rigged up his slip bobber and large roach, about 18 inches below, and within our first 15 minutes of fishing, in our first eddie, he hooked up.  I took a little video with my new MinoHD.

After this quick fish, we became excited, as we dreamed this cold front day would still produce fish.  Our trip, however, became somewhat unproductive after that.  We had no more bobbers go down and no more fish.  The only remaining highlight was a pike that literally came onto shore to chase my bait as it was coming out of the water.  This was the closest thing to a fish I was able to reach all day.

It was a good day to get out with a good friend.  This one little pike, on the Des Plaines River, was enough to keep us warm for a while.  This little river is truly an amazing recovery area that shows was environmental awareness and conservation can turn any fishery, especially one still considered a dump by the non-fisherman, into.

Todd holds his first Des Plaines River northern of the spring.