Breakfast Time Bassin' (with pics)

[Maliboo]

Ok, this is a blatant rip-off of that other thread, but that's what happens when you're popular, people copy you.

I work the graveyard shift so I don't fish on my lunch hour, but right after work about 7:30 or 8:00am. I usually fish the DuPage County Forest Preserves like East Branch, Meacham Grove, Spring Creek Reservoir, Songbird Slough, Mallard (when it was open) and West Branch. Eventually I'll get around to Blackwell, Hidden Lake, Pratt's Wayne Woods and maybe some others.

Lately though, the fishing in the a.m. has been really really tough so I've been trying to find a "honey hole," you know, one of those innocuous little ponds in a subdivision or park or corporate area that's not heavily pressured like the forest preserves. After trying a few places I saw on Google Earth, I've finally found one that's paying off big time.

Today was the first time I fished it, and here are the results from 8am to 10am:

Caught on my second cast with a 5" cinnamon senko, 17 inches:




A couple minutes later on a 5" cinnamon with fire tip senko, 18 inches:



A while later on a Rapala F9 silver floating minnow, 15 inches:



Then a bullhead on the 5" cinnamon with fire tip senko that was bigger than it looks in the pic:



And finally on my last cast, this 18" beast bent my hook! On the 5" cinnamon with fire tip senko:

[justo72]

Very nice! Looks like you found yourself a good honeyhole!

[nodlikescod]

Awesome action on the senko! Thanks for sharing.

[ripsomelips]

Is that pond in Bloomingdale? It looks familiar

[pchung3009]

Nice fishies.....healthy looking bass in that new honey hole of yours. Love it when they are smacking the senkos.

I think with the weather, you're better off in the morning anyways. I have been going at night to escape the heat lately.

Hope to see some more breakfast pics and reports.

Did they mostly bite close to shore? Casts along rip rap or vegetation. I have noticed that almost all of my bites fishing in a small pond come within 4-5 feet from shore in 6"-3 fow.

[Maliboo]

Is that pond in Bloomingdale? It looks familiar

Yeah, I think it is in Bloomingdale, but apparently it's "residents only" since the sheriff came and kicked me out today.

There were no signs, but the place was surrounded by houses so I kinda figured it was an iffy spot. Such a shame too cos I don't think anyone fishes that place. The bass seemed pretty naive and they were all close to the same size, 18". I don't think those residents appreciate what they have. God, I wish I lived there...

Now I feel like the forest preserves are hopeless. They've been extremely dead in the morning the last few weeks. Not just for me, but everyone I've talked to, and I always talk to every fisherman I see. What a drag. Guess I'll just keep looking on Google Earth hoping to find a honey hole where the residents don't call the cops. Funny thing too, I brought an empty garbage bag in my backpack to pick up some trash that other people had left there. I wanted to leave the place better than I found it. Oh well.

Did they mostly bite close to shore? Casts along rip rap or vegetation.

They were actually a good distance out, maybe 15-20 feet in around 4 fow, next to weed beds. The Senkos were rigged wacky with an o-ring to make them last longer.

[Maliboo]

So, this morning I spent 2 hours on a new little retention pond, one that's not surrounded by houses so it's probably safe. It was very full of weeds so I had to cast into pockets mostly. It started off very promising, on my very first cast before I could even turn the handle on my reel I got a fish to pick up my 5" cinnamon senko!

Just a dink:




But then it took 40 minutes before the next dink:




And then 40 minutes after that, this dink not only lost my senko, but when I got it to the bank it flapped its tail in the muck and splashed me good with mud!




Then I downsized to a 4" cinnamon senko since it appeared the fish were pretty small here, and 40 minutes later my 4th dink:




I'm not used to catching dinks on senkos, and two of them got throat hooked cos they were very gentle when they picked up the lure. Just a subtle moving of the slack, no "tap-tap." And they sure don't fight like the 18 inchers, I kind of horsed them in over the moss with my medium action St Croix. I think next time I'll bring my light action and Rapalas...

[Maliboo]

So, today I brought my light action rod and a Rapala silver F7 floating minnow to check out another pond for the first time. This time the fish were a couple inches bigger and pretty close to shore, about 10 feet. I used the old "twitch-twitch-pause" technique, and the action was fast and furious.

If I keep catching this many I'll probably stop taking pics of every fish. Here's the 6 I caught in about 30 minutes at the new pond:









This one had a messed-up eyeball:





After these I still wanted to try the pond from yesterday with the Rapala so I left early and caught this little guy in the first few casts:





Then I hooked this fool:



After catching this spaz I decided to attack the bank that was holding hundreds of spawning sunfish right up to the shore, so I tied on a fly and hooked at least 50 of them. Good thing I didn't take pics of those!

[Maliboo]

I've been trying out lots of new places this weekend. Yesterday I went to SEVEN different places and got totally SKUNKED! 4 parks, 2 forest preserves, and a retention pond with no luck.

First I went to Lake Becerra in Glendale Heights at about 5am since it was legal to fish there at that time. The lake is designated catch and release only and they're having a kid's fishing derby there next month so I thought it might be good pickings, but I had no strikes at all. I probably will try this place at a different time with different lures though since its so close to home.

Next I went to Lakeview Park near Meacham Grove forest preserve. I saw two guys put one of those mini bass boats with a trolling motor in the lake and cast lures. There isn't a lot of shore access here so I only stuck around about 20 minutes and kept an eye on the guys in the boat but didn't see or get any hook-ups.

Then I went up the street to Gorski Park which has a retention pond in it. One shoreline is accessible, but the rest is surrounded by houses so I had hopes it would be good like the other "private" retention ponds I've been to, but I got no action. I'm not even sure if there's fish in the thing. I guess there has to be for mosquito control huh?

While I was in the neighborhood I stopped at Maple Lake and walked way over to the spillway and got nothing.

Now after getting tired of NO STRIKES at all I headed to the totally legal retention pond I caught 4 bass at the other day and pretty quickly hooked one, but he leaped and threw the hook. Not wanting to waste too much time since I was on a scouting mission I left pretty quickly...

...and headed to Churchill Woods forest preserve. This place is part of the east branch of the DuPage River and I have no clue how to fish a river so I didn't really make too many casts but I did walk around and the atmosphere here is very nice.

Finally I headed to Lake Ellyn Park in Glen Ellyn and stayed for about 90 minutes trying to give it a fair shake. I did hook two fish which threw the hook, but it took a lot of work to get those two.

Whew! What a day! After that nightmare I wanted to make sure to catch some fish today, so this morning I went to the fast & furious retention pond I caught 6 at the other day, and proceeded to catch 4 in about 20 minutes including this 18 incher:



Then when the forest preserves were opened I went to Muskrat Pond at Hawk Hollow forest preserve right across the street from Deep Quarry. I think this place has promise since its probably not heavily pressured because there's no parking. I did catch one dink, and I have to apologize to those other retention pond fish I called "dinks" the other day, cos compared to forest preserve dinks, those were lunkers.

Next I hit Deep Quarry and got nothing but one "tap-tap" that was probably a bluegill nibbling my senko. This place confuses me, I only see one little cove that looks "bassy" and have no clue which spots to fish.

So, lastly I took the long walk to Bass Lake next door and did surprisingly well, catching 6 fish, only 2 of which were dinks, the others were 14-15 inches. I'll definitely be spending more time at Bass Lake in the future...

[Maliboo]

Today I went back to "Lake Becerra" at Heritage Park in Glendale Heights to work it thoroughly with senkos to see if there was any life in there. Unfortunately, I'm convinced there's no bass of catchable size in there. I didn't even see any sunfish, just carp. No weeds. I wonder how the kid's fishing derby is going to do there in a couple weeks. Maybe there's bullhead they can catch.

Headed over to Bass Lake after that and noticed a sign at Deep Quarry that said "Deep Quarry is open for night fishing. All visitors must be out of the forest preserve by 11pm." Since the normal closing time for forest preserves is an hour after sunset (about 9:30) I'm not sure if that extra hour and a half is much of a big deal.

Anyway, I had really bad luck at Bass Lake, I snagged my wacky wide gap finesse hooks THREE TIMES! Lots of fallen branches in the water there. So after running out of finesse hooks I decided instead of rigging Tex-Skin I'd go ahead and use a spinnerbait since there's pike in the lake and it'd be nice to be surprised. Didn't catch a pike, but got one 14" bass, then I cast my spinnerbait into a tree limb! I never do that! It was a nice War Eagle spinnerbait too. That hurts.

I'll probably take the day off tomorrow, looks like rain anyway...

[FishinMatt]

This is a nice little blog you have going here. If I had the time, I'd love to do what you are doing. A few years ago I did the google earth thing and probably 4 out of 5 ponds I fished were muddy carp factories. Every once inawhile I got lucky though

[pchung3009]

Mailboo...nice job hunting down some ponds..seems to produce pretty well for you. That's all I did last year, visited almost all accessible ponds in a 3 mile radius from home to narrow it down to a few that I like to go to. Not so much time anymore as most of my free time is with my 6 month old. Lunch has been my best time to go, but I only get 1-2 hours if I'm lucky. With the heat lately, didn't want to go, but with the weather cooling, I'll be out there soon.

If you ever need someone to explore Bass Lake with you, I'm in. I've only tried twice and got the skunk both times, but I still have some faith in that lake.

Keep the pics coming.

[Maliboo]

This is a nice little blog you have going here. If I had the time, I'd love to do what you are doing. A few years ago I did the google earth thing and probably 4 out of 5 ponds I fished were muddy carp factories. Every once inawhile I got lucky though

Thanks. Google earthing is fun and adventurous. Sometimes you have to be pretty intrepid to get to these places, but often there's a feeling that maybe you're not allowed to be there and you're just waiting for somebody to kick you out. That's why I only hit my fast & furious pond for about 20 minutes at a time cos I don't want to lose it like I lost the other one.

Good thing about forest preserves is you know you're allowed to be there, so I still plan on trying out a lot more of those.

Today I found out you can get access almost all the way around Lakeview Park, so I went over there with a co-worker this morning for a short while and got skunked, but he caught 3 dinks.

If you ever need someone to explore Bass Lake with you, I'm in. I've only tried twice and got the skunk both times, but I still have some faith in that lake.

That'd be great! The lunch basser and the breakfast basser teaming up as the brunch bassers! Give me a PM when you have the free time and we'll show why its called "Bass Lake."

[Maliboo]

Today I went to Timber Lake at the Timber Ridge Forest Preserve. All I can tell you is: don't go there.

[Maliboo]

Went to my fast & furious pond first thing this morning with a shallow shad rap and an X-rap shallow shad rap and pulled in 4 bass pretty quickly. Had more strikes that either didn't get hooked or came off the hook too. Plus I caught this nice crappie:




Then I headed over to Pickerel Lake at Pratt's Wayne Woods and landed 8 bass. Only lost one this time. Saw some guy fishing with corn who had 3 channel cats in his basket as well.

Next I went up the street to the "new" Harrier Lake and circumnavigated the whole lake but didn't catch anything. I really only made casts in one cove since most of the lake has thick weeds. You can rig Texas but if you catch anything you'd have to haul it through those weeds which wouldn't be fun. I did see a live crayfish in the water, which was the first one I've ever seen at a forest preserve. I wonder if all of them have crayfish? Anyway, I found a tick on me when I got home too, so I'm done with that place even though I'd love to catch a smallmouth since I've never caught one before.

So then I went to lunch at Boston Market and headed over to Bass Lake even though it was like 1pm and not the best time for fishing. I did manage to land one bass and lose one, although it may have been the same bass since I lost it and then two casts later hooked up again. You'd think they'd learn after getting hooked once, but they're kinda stupid huh?

I'd love to do some evening fishing at Rush Lake right now, but I'm exhausted. I also circumnavigated Bass Lake for the first time, and that trail isn't really made for circumnavigating, I had to blaze a trail. Anyway, Rush lake is getting pressured hardcore this summer and I've been skunked there the last 3 out of 4 times so Hell with it...