FTA – 3/6/04 Montgomery and Oswego

From the Archives – I have 100s of posts that were made on fishing forums starting around 1998. When I have nothing new to say, I thought I would start putting them up on my blog. I hope you like them.
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3/6/04 Montgomery and Oswego

Air temperature 40-45 degrees, forgot to take water temperature, partly cloudy to clear skies, water high, fast and muddy, visibility about 4 inches, 3:00 to 6:30 p.m., jig and twister.

It may have been a little nuts to go out in this high water, but an afternoon in the water is hard to pass up when you can swing it. Besides, it’s March and I have to be out there when things start to turn on, I can’t help myself. Total:

13 smallmouth bass.

Work has slowed down enough that I can get out on weekends without giving a thought to client responsibilities. I took advantage of this by packing in a day of skeet shooting and fishing. I knew I was overdoing it. After weeks of sitting in front of the computer I could tell I was already getting a little soft. A day of shooting and walking 2 or 3 miles while fishing could be painful if rushed. Surprising how quickly muscle tone goes away.

I met up with Marc Horwitz at the Des Plaines Conservation area to shoot some skeet. We were going on a pheasant hunt at Rooster Heaven Hunting Preserve the next day and we wanted to get in a little bit of practice. Marc had a newer shotgun he wanted to get used to shooting and I had an old 20 gauge Remington 870 I wanted to use. Marc was deadeye that morning with solid hits that shattered clays while I struggled a little more. I wanted to get used to the overall feel of the gun since I hardly ever shot it. Normally I shoot an over/under and pulling the trigger twice while keeping a bead on the clay makes hitting them much easier.

By the end of the shooting I wasn’t doing too bad. I was remembering to pump another round into the chamber on about 90 percent of the shots. Still going to take a little getting used to, but I was convinced I was going to be able to go bird hunting with it and not leave a bunch of wounded birds out in the field.

After we wore out the skeet thrower and our shoulders I headed out to the Fox just to see for myself how much the river came up from all the rain we had. I had read the water level gauges before heading out for the day, but they don’t always tell the whole story. A slow steady rain doesn’t seem to put as much dirt and debris in the water. Where a fast moving downpour can wash all kinds of junk into the river. When I drove along the river I didn’t see too many parts of trees and garbage floating by, so I figured I may as well go look for some fish.

When the water is up like this I go looking for where more water is coming into the river. It could be a creek, discharge, culvert or any kind of pipe putting more water in the river. I’m sure there are all kinds of reasons why they are fish attractors, but I’m going to assume its because that’s where food is. I tested this once in Geneva while fishing under a bridge in the rain. I wasn’t catching much of anything. The rain was pouring through the pipes in the underside of the bridge that acted as drains for the road above. I started casting directly on top of where the water was hitting the river, figuring a fish might think it’s a bug being washed into the water. 4 casts later I had caught 2 largemouth bass, a walleye and a bluegill. That was all the proof I needed.

The low water last year gave me the opportunity to go look for anything that puts water into the river. One culvert I came across has a hole directly in front of it that is between 3 and 4 feet deep. This type of washout isn’t unusual in front of a culvert, but the hole on this one was not a gradual hole. In one step you would go that deep. It’s not unusual for me to walk in the water along the shore even at flood stage. I know the water will only be about 2 or 3 feet deep. It’s nice to know the location of this hole along the shore so I don’t suddenly find myself in over my head. This stretch had everything I was looking for and I fished down the river, eventually winding up about a mile from my car.

At one point the clouds had all but disappeared and the sun was nice and warm. I had noticed a bug hatch coming up while Marc and I were out shooting. I was walking along some railroad tracks when I noticed thick clouds of bugs hovering above the occasional green patch on the ground. I was watching my feet as I walked on the railroad ties when I stopped just short of stepping on a baby snake.

It was curled into a coil shape with its head sticking out, sunning itself on the wood of the railroad tie. Seems like everything was out in this warmer weather trying to take advantage of it before it went away again.

I decided to stick with jigs and twisters. I catch a lot of fish with them and in water moving this fast, if they get hung up on a rock I don’t feel bad snapping them off. Not worth getting swept down stream for less than a half buck’s worth of lead, steel and plastic. I tried a variety of colors in an effort to determine what the fish wanted. Yellow jig with junebug/chartreuse, yellow jig with pearl twister, pearl jig with pearl twister and my favorite, black jig with smoke twister. The pearl combinations produced nothing, with the black smoke combination being the most successful. I’m out of twisters that have pumpkinseed coloring. This is also usually a good choice.

All the fish were sitting on the distinct edges or in the slower water of eddies. Nothing came out of fast moving water. All but one of the smallies were between 11 and 16 inches.

I also pulled about 25 scales off of carp that were unfortunate enough to drag themselves across my moving jig. Just about 6:30 I picked up a fish I have caught before, I think twice. It’s between 14 and 15 inches and has only one eye. It seems to like to hang out in one area whether the water is high or low. I snagged up soon after that and snapped off the jig. I was tired and there was no way my eyes would let me tie on another jig in this low light. I headed down shore for the almost mile hike back to the car.

Now, I’ve walked this stretch in the dark numerous times without incident, so it came as a complete surprise to me when after going about 100 feet I suddenly found myself with my nose 2 or 3 inches from the ground. It seems that as I get older and possibly a little heavier, I seem to hit the ground faster and harder. I was just barely able to get my hands in front of me, so I landed on my hands, my fishing vest and my camera with a hard thud. At first it seemed like no big deal.Then my rib, which I may have broken a few weeks earlier, reminded me that it still wasn’t healed by giving me a sharp pain in my chest. I laid there looking into the dirt, gasping for air and I heard myself say out loud “that can’t be good.”

I laid there chuckling to myself, thinking about my car almost a mile away and how the heck I was going to get to it. I thought of how Marc had tried to talk me out of going because he said the river was dangerously high and it was nuts. I was starting to think Marc was right but for the wrong reason. Who knew that walking on land would be the hard part.