Illinois River around Starved Rock

[Lipripper]

Fish it would be a little diffrent but eye think eye could get use to it for a short period of time.

[silversalmon]

  Now that sounds like another great time on the water LIP, hope them kitties tasted good for ya

[Lipripper]

silver we didn't keep them. We let the other guys have them all for his VFW club for a fish fry benifit for one of the members sone who has cancer so they went to a good cause 

[Lipripper]

Ok just to let ya'll know  This weekend we are going on another kitty-kat adventure on the Illinois River 

[Lipripper]

Just a reminder that there will be another report here either tomorrow nigh or on Sunday after our day of fishing tomorrow. 

[Lipripper]

We had another great day on the Illinois River yesterday. The day started off with a little  lightning and thounder but we waited it out for about 1 hour till the lightning and thunder stopped but the  keept up most of the day but we need it so no complaning here  We hit the river and eye took the throw net and caught our bait for the day and even caught a 2lb Smallmouth Bass in the net too which was put back in the water right away. When eye caught enough shad for the day we started fishing and every spot we tried we got bites and caught some fish too, We missed a lot of bites but eye could tell they were little channle cats from the way they were hitting and we did catch severl of the little ones too befor the day was done. We finished the day with 28 keepers and as soon as joda e-mails them to me eye will post some    But here is one of me at the end of the day with all the keepers. One of the guys keep four of them and all the rest we gave to severl people who were fishing from the bank and boy let me tell you they were glad to have them. Fish not much nature out because of the rain but eye did see two eagles  and about 30 turkey vulters. Ok here is the one  eye do have

[Creel Limit Zero]

WTG Lip, when's the Fish Fry.     Count me in, I'll bring the 

[Lipripper]

Creel you would be more than welcome to come  and eye would supply the   

[DAWG]

I wanna come too    Looks like you had a good fishing too today .Did you read my report 

[Fishaholic]

Nice report Lip 

Managed to post one for your eyes too!

[Mike Cork]

Lipripper, you definately know how to put a few kitty kats in the boat

How do you play the current? do you look for deeper holes this time of year?

WTG, looks like a nice mess of fish, I bet them shore anglers sure were excited when you gave some to them

[Lipripper]

DAWG you can come to and eye havn't read your report yet but eye will  Fish read your  Mike the current isn't a problem you just have to use bigger weights but the problem comes when them pleasure boaters come zooming by without slowing down  and their wake broadsids your anchored boat  and then your weight gets snaged in the rocks on the bottem but we know how to get them unsnaged without loseing to many of them  what we do is fish around the bridge legs and grain silows and in the open we look for the ledges where the water comes up from around 18' to 20' in the outside bends up to around 8' and fish on the ledges. We caught 28 and one of the guys took four and we gave the rest to the people fishing on the bank and they were excited to get them and one lady's eye's look like a little kid's in a candy store just after the clerk told him to help himself  Eye will have some  to post in the gallery in a couple of days.

[Mike Cork]

Thanks Lipripper oh and we will be watching for those pictures too

[Lipripper]

Your welcome Mike and one of these day's eye'm going to have to get my own camra  Now time for me to go so see you tomorrow . OH by the way how did the test go.

[Steve_W]

Lip you aint tryin to kiss that cat are you better hope the missLipriper don't see that pic 
Good bunch of cats their lip

[Lipripper]

Tim how ya doing and not to worry Mrs. Lip know's 

[Lipripper]

Ok just as soon as joda gives me a call we will be headding out to the Illinois River again for some more kitty-kat fishing  Eye will report how our afternoon went when we get back 

[Lipripper]

Well we only got to fish for about  3 hr  but that's better than not going at all  The water was still down but there was current flowing through it. We started out by going to where we always catch our bait shad from but after four or five try's it was easy to tell they wasn't there today and we didn't see them breaking the top of the water so after getting only one shad on each try we started huntting for them. We moved up stream about 200 yards and I saw swerles in the water about 30 yards ahead of the boat in the shallow water  We moved to within 20' of where the swreel was at and I made a long cast and counted down the decent and this time I came up with about 6 doz. shad. I repeated it again with the same results another 6 doz. shad. Well there for awhile we thought we were going to not be able to do any fishing  but that part of the excitment and enjoyment of catching your own bait. Well anyways that left us with only about 2 hr.s of daylight left befor we had to leave. So we hit all our regular spots where we always catch fish but not today. They just wasn't there. Since we didn't have alot of time we only spent about 15 mint.s in each spot and if they didn't want to bite we moved on to another one. Well we did end up catching 6 kitty kats and I set the hook on one fish and had it on for about 30sec. and what ever it was it cut the line (Must have been a BASS  ) joda and I hand a great time and we did catch some fish. So till next time good fishing.

[Creel Limit Zero]

6 kitty kat's doesn't sound like that bad of a trip.  Sorry you only got 3 hours in, but like you said, better than nothing.   

[Lipripper]

Well I'm going kitty-kat fishing again tomorrow on the Illinois river so there will be another report here either tomorrow night or Monday. I know there are some Small Mouth Bass in there because I caught one in my cast net befor so just might have to throw some lures to see if I can get one of them to bite.

[Mike Cork]

After you set those cat fish rods out, take a bass rod and make a few casts Good luck out there and let us know how it went

[Lipripper]

Just what me was thinking  and do you think them Walleyes would bite one of them LA Slidders 

[Mike Cork]

I definately bet they will, I would do like Fishaholic and shave down the lead head of the bait unless you are wanting to fish very deep

[Lipripper]

Mike not really sure how to fish them but was thinking about one of the spots where we ancher down off the point of an Island where it goes fron around 3 or 4 ' to 12' with lots of current and I know if the Walleye are in there this time of the year that would be a good spot to use that LA Slider with the weight just like it is  What ya think. Would you just toss it out and bring it back slow or since Walleyes are known to hug the bottem just bounce it off the rocks on that ledge with Mega Strike all over that LA Slider 

[Mike Cork]

Lip that sounds like a good plan, I would try a couple different retrieves. First cast up to on the point and bring it down into the deeper water, use a steay retrieve just fast enough to keep it off the bottm. Then I would retrieve it at a speed that would allow it to bump off the bottom occasionally. If they haven't taken it yet. Try letting it hit the bottom and then jerk it up off the bottom and let it fall back and repeat until it is back at the boat. If for some reason the fish seem to be suspending off the bottom, I have seen where a very quick retrieve that keeps the bait in the 4-6 foot range all the way back to the boat will work Definately keep the "Mega Strike" Attractant on the L.A. Slider that is some good stuff