Started fishing last weekend, but its been tough. Last weekend I got one bass at Mazonia on Friday and one at an Aurora retention pond on Saturday. Skunked on the Fox River.
This weekend I got skunked at Rush Lake Saturday, but today managed two small pike at Bass Lake on a Sassy Shad:
After catching those pike yesterday I took the Sassy Shad and the sassy girlfriend to the Fox River at Indian Trail Blvd. We spent almost two hours but I only got one smallie. First one of the year though:
Then we hit a retention pond in Aurora that always produces well. Spent about an hour and we each got one small largemouth. Mine on a Sassy Shad and hers on a 4" Senko:
This morning I hit Pickerel Lake for the first time this year with a small Dardevle hoping to get some more pike or maybe a trout, or at worst a largemouth. Got there about 6:20 and luckily they were already open. I think the rangers open it first since their headquarters is right across the street I think. Anyway, it was too cold and it started raining so I left after almost an hour. Did see one guy catch a small trout on bait off the first pier though.
Seemed like Summer this morning, so I hit the pond with BIG bass in it for the first time this year. I was getting strikes on just about every other cast, but they were babies too small to even get the Sassy Shad in their mouths! And Bluegills. After a while I gave up and put on a Rapala with two treble hooks to teach these young 'uns a thing or two. Caught one 6" bass and two bluegills before leaving them alone and heading to the pond with LOTS of bass in it for the first time this year.
First cast caught this nice 15 incher on the Rapala:
Couple minutes later got a big Crappie:
Only stayed about 15 minutes before hunger and tiredness overtook me. I think I'm out of shape...
I'm looking forward to another season of reports. I hit a pond near Orchard Rd. last night and found it has some really nice gills, but the bass were stunted. Got a tip on a possible crappie pond so that is next on the list...
I've been lazy updating this here fishin' log, or "flog" as the kids call it. Last weekend we hit a retention pond in Aurora and the fish were in a frenzy, I ended up with 12 on 4" Senkos, the girlfriend caught a couple, and even the kid landed one on a 4" bubblegum Senko!
Hit the Fox that evening, but only landed one small Largemouth on a Rapala X-Rap #6.
Monday I went to Heidicke with a co-worker who has a bass boat, but we got royally skunked. Did catch one bass at the pond by his house afterwards though.
And today was a good day at the office. Using a big ol' six inch Senko I got this 4lb 8oz (that's four and a half pounds sonny) monster:
Then this 3lb 6oz eighteen incher:
Also lost another BIG one with a 4" Storm Wildeye Swimshad when it jumped for the second time and threw the heavy lure.
Oh boy! The pond bass are biting like crazy right now. Yesterday I hit 3 retention ponds in Aurora and ended up with 20 bass on 4" Senkos. They were all babies though, except this 15 incher with a head wound:
And today I landed 11 nice bass 13-15 inches on a 6" Senko at a Bloomingdale pond. Saw lots of bass near shore also.
Maliboo wrote:Oh boy! The pond bass are biting like crazy right now. Yesterday I hit 3 retention ponds in Aurora and ended up with 20 bass on 4" Senkos. They were all babies though, except this 15 incher with a head wound:
And today I landed 11 nice bass 13-15 inches on a 6" Senko at a Bloomingdale pond. Saw lots of bass near shore also.
Wow. Can I ask what Bloomingdale pond you caught those bass at?
I've been waiting for Mallard to open, I need a "spot" close to home.
Sorry Walleyenut, but I've been sworn to secrecy about this particular pond.
This morning I fished Bass Lake for an hour but got skunked. There was only two other people there on a nice partly cloudy Saturday. One guy had no action and the other lost a big strong bass that snapped his 6lb test cos his drag was too tight.
Then I hit the Fox River at Langum park and landed 3 nice smallies and lost one jumper. Two of the smallmouths were larger than i usually get, about 14-15 inches.
I started this morning off at a hot local pond and ended up with 23 bass in 2 hours. I caught the first 7 on a #6 X-Rap, then went to a topwater prop bait, but lost a few and only landed one, so then I switched to the new Rapala Flat Rap to try it out. At first it was doing about as well as the X-Rap cos I was basically fishing it the same with occasional jerks and pauses, but after I tried a steady fast retrieve it really turned on. These things flash up a storm and don't run too deep which is great for ponds. I expect I'll be using this a lot this season...
I then wanted to try it on the Fox River to see if it would catch smallmouth or anything else. I caught this nice one at Langum park, 14 inches:
I then tried another spot, Gregory Island Park, but it was getting late (past 10am) so no luck. I ended the day at a park pond in Aurora that has big fish, but it was too late.
X-Raps are great, but one thing I've learned is the #6 is good for smallmouth bass and small pond largemouths, but for largemouths 13 inches and above the small barbs on the small hooks don't always hold very well. I've lost quite a few after they jumped, so in the future I'll use the #8 where there's bigger fish.
You should try the Flat Rap as well, it casts a mile, flashes big time, runs shallow, and can be fished faster than the X-Rap since you don't pause it.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I landed 3 crappie on the #6 X-Rap, and some of the largemouth I caught looked like they were pregnant.
