I'm going to make this stick to the top and just keep adding to it till the end of April. Then I'll start one for May into June and on and on.
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Everything is temperature driven.
I'm going to be hitting the creeks soon.
I like to see what the fish are up to and compare one year to another.
Was looking at old posts and pictures over the weekend. Warm weather will bring smallies into the creeks from now to mid April. Then they'll move out to let all the carp species and suckers go absolutely nuts with their spawning routines. The smallies basically get out of the way. By May 15th carp and suckers are pretty much gone and the smallies will travel farther up stream. On the one creek I've been hitting I'm catching them by the end of May about 9 miles up from the Fox.
Came across these pictures from about 7 years ago. Had a pretty nice warm spring that year and was hitting the creeks pretty good for the second and third weeks of April.
They were going pretty far up the creek by then too.
As for the spawning smallie debate, I ignore it. After 14 years of hitting creeks in that time frame I have seen no impact what so ever.
Think about it, I'm 9 miles up a creek and I catch a few fish. I have had no impact on all those other virtually untouched fish in those other 9 miles or the many miles further up stream. On the Fox itself, let's say you fish a spot in Batavia, catch a half dozen fish or so in a quarter of a mile stretch. That leaves over 50 miles more for fish to spawn in. Probably 95 percent of it never seeing an angler. Not just during the spawn, ever.
Let's say you do fish a spot in Batavia, catch a half dozen fish or so in a quarter of a mile stretch. So what. Years ago I fished Rock Creek on the Kankakee at what must have been the height of the spawn. From the small waterfall down stream to the bridge I must have easily seen a thousand smallies. An amazing sight to see. Just milling about the creek. I caught 35 of them. And that was a struggle even with leeches. So how many fish are in that quarter mile stretch where you picked up a half dozen. How many have completely ignored your existence and anything you're doing.
No matter what creek I go to and how much pressure it supposedly gets, when I go back in mid June or a little later, I see clouds of bass fry in the shallows. That speaks for itself.
Depending on temperatures and water levels, the bite on the Fox could become more active by this weekend. Again, my records show that after early spring warm ups, things were going pretty well in North Aurora and the Les Arends stretch south of Batavia. My records show I was out years ago the third week of March. I combed the Les Arends Forest Preserve for 4 hours and had only two fish to show for it. But they were both 18 inch smallies.
Found this picture of someone I had out guiding on April 19 of '04. You can see what I mean about how things are all temperature driven by the way he's dressed. This one is from the Glenwood Forest Preserve area, just up stream and on the other side from Les Arends.
The third week of April and things were still looking good at Les Arends.
North Aurora was always one of my early spring spots as I mentioned. This shot was taken on April 3rd years ago. I have a bunch of other shots from that day with Steve Jung, but this was the biggest of the day.
I apparently went back there two weeks later that same year and the fish were still hitting pretty good.
North Aurora all the way down to practically Aurora has always been one of the stretches where I catch the biggest walleye. Not sure why, just is. Was out on April 16, "03. When I caught this. I had a choice. Hand a total stranger a $500 camera set up to take a picture of me holding a fish, or hand the fish to a total stranger.
I stopped giving my on the water fishing classes on the Fox about 5 years ago. Back then I would teach anglers different stretches of the river. Each month a different location. The location was picked based on my own success in each area for that specific time of year. By mid April I would have my first class of the year in Geneva. We would cover from the Route 38 bridge all the way down and past the treatment plant on the east side.
I don't ever recall being skunked that time of year. The way it was fished depended on water levels. If the water was down, we would primarily fish the west side where the shore structure is pretty good and the main river channel is about 40 feet out from that shore. Smallies and white bass were the primary fish active then.
One year in April the water was relatively low, nice out, and I was wading the east side along the island park. I came across a kid that had hooked a muskie, in knee deep water. There was no way the thing was going to survive if he just dropped it off the wall back into the shallow water. So after a quick picture, I helped revive it and send it on its way.
At high water in Geneva in April, the best bet is to just walk the wall all the way from Route 38 to the railroad tracks. The old limestone wall has lots of nooks and crannies so you need to get your lure within inches of the wall. Bumping it off the wall is even better and work it from the top to the bottom.
From the railroad tracks down past the treatment plant is more of a challenge. But it's worth the effort to scramble all over the rocks and dabbling a line behind any thing that is breaking the current. No rock is too small. At the end of this stretch the river swings out back to the middle. Along that shore is a big gravel bar. Even at high water it's not impossible to stand on it. Fish the hell out of it just below the gravel, from out into the river and all the way back to shore. Very nice undercut bank along there.
And then there's the west side from the tracks to this little ditch. Structure heaven with rocks all over the place. Beyond that you start getting into the pool of the Batavia dam. So I never ventured down. But, further down stream at Fabyan Forest Preserve, on the west side, is another island park held back by another limestone wall. Fish it the same way as the island park off Route 38. I tried to make it across the river here once and gave up. Made me a bit nervous, which is rare.
There's a very good chance that this same pattern holds for March, but my notes don't show that I ever went there to try it. I was busy at Les Arends and hanging around creek mouths. Only one way to find out, someone go try it and get back to me.
I'll be busy in a couple of creeks.
The problem this year has been the water levels. If you're not comfortable wading, the water has been higher than normal for quite some time. Normal is around 750 cubic feet per second. If my record keeping is correct, it has only gone down to that level twice, and for a very brief period of time, in around 2 years now. It has consistently stayed above the 1200 cfs level for most of that time. I have never seen such sustained higher water readings on the Fox for the 14 years I've been fishing it. Too bad it didn't behave this way the year I opened my canoe shop in 2005. That year it dropped to 150 cfs, the lowest level on record. I might still have the shop open.
This year there was virtually no ice on most of the river. The river was up and flowing too high for the ice to form. I've been in some stretches in Montgomery past winters where there was about a 50 foot wide open channel and the rest was pretty well frozen. This year it was open in Montgomery from shore to shore.
In the past during the winter you would be lucky to see the river flowing above 500 cfs. Right now it is flowing at 1470 cfs. I have not seen it go below 1200 cfs all winter, and I check daily.
Will this warmer weather turn on the fishing? Maybe. They can still be caught regardless, if you're patient.
I have 5 creeks I want to monitor, maybe 6. I can't get to all of them in such a short time frame. For me, I'll have to play favorites. If the fish are starting to move in, great. If not, then I'm sure I'll either learn something or have a wonderful day doing the type of exploring I love the most.
Can you tell I'm getting just a little buggy to get out more.
