2" Visibility again

[GreatfulDad]

Here's the story. My good guide friend Austin Adduci needed another drift boat to be a camera boat for two girls trying to make content for a site called...Tight Loop. Good casters and caught a few fish on lead eye streamers. I had a guy row me all day while his buddy Brad did the filming. I caught one nice smallie on my second cast on a white Boogle popper. That was the last fish to eat a popper of course.

I caught a few against rock walls with an orange twister tail on a 32nd ounce jig. Wind blew like crazy and it was HOT. Then the wind died and got hotter...little did I know that my wife wasn't in the pool all day because the temperature dropped 22 degrees between the Kank and home in St Charles...very weird.

The water was at 3600 cfs which was down 1100 from Wednesday. Two weeks before...it was at 26,000 cfs!!!!! I think that's why the Mazon and the Vermillion are dirty from the same Indiana watershed.

Anyway...the fish gods smiled on me with 1 mile to go after 10 miles of floating. The water was still higher than the bank and I happened to see a good size push of water in the weeds. Somebody was chasing bait in the weeds. I put on a 3 inch white twister tail and lobbed it into a window in the weeds with an opening to the main channel. It quickly got munched. Nice healthy 14 incher. The next two casts got gobbled as well...you could see them swimming away with the bait. In that last mile I hooked 8 really nice fish in exactly the same set up...they had really turned on in the weeds.

Left with a great buzz wishing I had found the key earlier in the day.

If you don't know the river or need a guide for a trip...I REALLY like Austin Adduci. He is a straight shooting, boy scout friendly, hard working guide with a great boat and gear. Spends many days on the water. His phone is 630-886-1964.

I'd give him a 10 as a guide you will enjoy spending a whole day with...we left at 7am after the shuttle and didn't finish until 5pm. Works hard and will give you an honest appraisal of the conditions. If he thinks the conditions are not in your favor...he will call you and reschedule before just taking a boat ride...fairly rare I believe.

[Norm Minas]

austin is one of the good guys. we took a ride together last year, kind of a guides day off, just talking locations and techniques.

i've been out there just about every day, just don't have the inspiration to write reports other than my weekly report to Dale.