need a little help please

[BrianZ]

hi all.
So assuming that the river levels continue to drop (dangerous assumption this year i know!) and lets say by 8/26 & 8/27 that they are well below 1000cfs and wade-able anywhere. good.
i have a fishin bud visiting from florida during those days and would like to do at least one loooong wade involving two cars. i think a wade somewhere between 3-5 miles. my problem is i am not all that familiar with access spots downstream of south elgin, i have fished a few times in the area but not enough to feel comfy leaving a car in a spot for 5++ hours as we wade our way down. any advice on a stretch for a long two car wade trip and where to leave the vehicles? any help is greatly appreciated. thanks
bz

[flyfisher]

My suggestion is to drive on Route 25 or 31, both of which run along the river. It is better to stop, fish a section and then get back in the car to drive to another section of the river. There is a lot of dead water that does not hold fish on the Fox. I think your best efforts would be to park and fish and move again, rather than wade one section with cars on each end.

Flyfshr

[Ken G]

If you are determined to do a long wade, I highly recommend starting in Oswego and wading all the way down past Orchard Road to Saw Wee Kee Park. I think that's about 2.5 miles, maybe more. Considering that I can spend about 3 or 4 hours fishing three quarters of a mile in that stretch, you might be moving fast. You can always end it at Orchard Road.

Do a search on saw wee kee. It's an Oswegoland Park District property. You can start right in Oswego at the park on the river. From Route 34 to Orchard, that area is filled with islands. You can spend all day just going back and forth through the islands and never get bored.

Montgomery to Oswego along Route 25, like flyfshr says. Parking all along the way and you can jump in and out of the river pretty easy.

I think it's better to cover less distance more thoroughly. What's the rush?

[Frank Macikas]

If saw wee kee park is the one right at downtown Oswego I love fishing that stretch. I have always had great luck there and caught some really nice fish through there. I usually start by fishing the rock wall across from the park then head upstream. If the level ever drops I would like get back out there. One of the last times I was there I almost got stuck right in the middle and couldnt decide to keep going or head back; it was too high and fast once it got chest deep and thought my feet were going to get swept.

[Ken G]

Frank, I can't remember the name of the park in downtown Oswego. Hell, I only drive past it almost every day, but that would be the starting point.

Saw wee kee is 3/4 of a mile down from Orchard Road. I've spent 4 hours picking apart the stretch from Orchard to the park. Then there's the stretch down from there for a mile.

There's just too much water to cover.

[BrianZ]

saturday starting about 5:30 i fished from the saw wee kee launch to about 200yds upstream of orchard road bridge. nice stretch. different water than i am used to fishing so at times i felt a little dsoriented... fished that stretch, up and down until almost noon. had fish casting up and downstream but most came cross current when possible and a 3" black over silver/white floating rapala worked the best. before teh sun cleared the trees i lost a very nice fish on a buzz bait, went 0 for 5 on topwatear .
along shore of one of the islands i saw these guys having a little breakfast party.


along the shore of another island there was a nice little lift, very subtle and i wasn't even sure it was adequate holding water but after my 3rd cast upstream i got this guy :
my hand tells me 8-9#'s he got out into the shallower faster water and fought pretty well.

i didnt take any smallie pix because i didnt think there was anything of note, my last fish of the morning was this guy:

couple other pix





i'll be out that way again thursday for most of the day with my buddy from florida. we will probably do the stretch from oswego down to orchard.
yesterday morning i fished closer to home for just a couple hours, started at 4am in the quiet darkness just the way i love it. managed one little walleye on a rapala and 3 smallmouths 14- 16" on jigs, when it got light enough to see i put on the waders and headed downstream to a spot that treated me really well in july when the water was low. well the watert wasn't quite as low as it was teh last time i fished this spot and since it was only my second time fishing it i wasn't sure exactly which way to wade down...there is a gravel bar almost dead center of the river, last time the fish wanted the offerings to come over the gravel bar and they would nail it in 1' of water, but the water was up about 6-8" from the alst time i fished it and the subtleties of the structure were ahrd to pick out. on my wade approaching the gravel bar i notice a nice little seam up against the shore that wasn't as pronounced, i made a cast with a buzzbait and a very respctable smallie missed, i could tell by the sound of the gulp that it was a big smallie, i marked his location and decided to take another shot at him on the way back up...
at the gravel bar things were tough, i managed 4 smallies lost a couple, biggest was only 16" but gave a very good account of himself, also managed two quillbacks about 3#'s each, again black over silver/white rapala brought cross current bouncing off rocks in 2-3 fow was getting bit. also managed two very samll white bass, one of them was about an inch larger than the plug!!
so on the wade back up i stopped to see if the bigg'n that missed the buzz bait was still interested in a little wrasslin third cast with teh rapala and just the lightes little "tick" and i set the hook. i had the fish on for 10 seconds and i never had anything remotely approaching control of this fish!! it ran me right into a little brush pile/log jam and that was it all i got back was the rapala with 3 green branches on it. i know where he lives and will probably be abck for him on friday morning with my buddy, we will probably have some kind of bet to see who gets first cast to the spot!
im not sure why the pix are cut off, i guess they are too big, i'll try to play with them on photobucket, if not i apologize.

[Ken G]

Great report. Been working 12 hour days, 6 days a week so no time to get out. It's nice and also frustrating to read these reports.

In Photoshop I save all photos 6 X 8 inches at 72 dpi. They fit perfectly, look good and are small enough to load on the page fast.

Not sure how to do that in other programs though.