I started out at Big Rock Creek just to kill time. I wanted to be at Little Rock Creek, but the area I wanted to fish is a forest preserve. The sign says they open at 8 AM. I get up much earlier than that. They seem to frown on me parking by the gate and basically blocking half of it for the 3 or 4 hours I usually fish. I can't help it if they can't get there at a reasonable fishing time.

The water of the creeks was up a bit and a little stained, but overall they looked pretty good. The first couple of hundred feet on Big Rock produced nothing, not even a hit, which is unusual. When that happens I can't fish slow enough or cast to the same spot enough times. It's as if the fish are down there thinking about whether or not they want to eat something. I think it was the sixth cast that finally got me a hard thump and some drag humming off my reel. If you're only going to get one hit and fish, it may as well be a nice 16 inch smallie.





A fly fisherman showed up and was fishing just upstream from me. It was time to move to Little Rock Creek and I was going to be nice and let him have this stretch. Easy to do that when you have other places to go. Turned out to be Nat the flyfisher and after a few minutes conversation we both headed to Little Rock.

It was only 7:30 AM and the gates were open. Maybe the ranger is an insomniac or maybe they don't want their bosses getting phone calls from impatient fishermen. I was grateful.

Since the creek is small, I described a stretch to Nat so he could have it to himself while I moved further upstream. These little creeks are hard to have more than one angler fishing a stretch at a time. After taking him to a put-in point, I kept hiking the shore up stream.

Hiking is not really what it is. Stumbling and crawling is more how it looks. While plowing through some thorny bushes I felt a sharp pinch on my thigh. If I could feel the thorn, I was going to have a leak at that spot. A few minutes later I was proven correct when I got in water up to my waist and felt the damp spot grow right where my thigh got pinched. I hate looking for pinholes in waders.

There is one good sized hole about 5 feet deep and 20 feet long that sits behind a rock bar. The perfect ambush point for a smallie. The two times I've fished this hole I've caught a 16 inch smallie each time. The first cast I put on top of the rock bar and let it drift back into the hole. Immediately the fish was on and racing around the hole. This one felt much heavier and it pulled much harder than the other fish I caught out of here. But I'll never know. Never got to see it since the water was stained. When I got it to within about 15 feet, the jig and twister came flying up out of the water and landed off behind me somewhere. Disheartening to say the least.

This overall pool is easily three hundred feet long and deep for the whole stretch. I've only fished maybe the last 50 to 75 feet of it. I can't figure out how to get further up stream. The shores are practically nonexistent with the rock sliding steeply into water that appears bottomless. Walking the shore to get this far is a form of torture. To keep going is even worse. Even the deer seem to avoid it since I have yet to find a deer path that I can follow.

I know a relatively shallow area where I can get across the creek. While I'm walking I'm casting upstream the whole time. One time I hook a dead branch about 4 feet above the water that's attached to a dead tree that's making a nice current break. I pulled hard on the line figuring I'd snap the branch and get my jig and twister back. Instead, the line snapped about 5 feet from the lure. This is 8 pound test powerpro that I use so snapping it is no easy task. No big deal, I'll walk out to the middle of the creek and get it off the branch. I wanted to see how deep it was anyway.

Deeper than I thought and the bottom had some pretty big boulders to trip over. When I got under the branch I was in a good 4 feet of water. Somehow I got the lure out of the tree and tripped over a couple of other decent boulders. Took my time tying the jig back on and took a break leaning up against an almost vertical shoreline. I wanted things to settle down a bit since I just walked through it all.

Cast down stream and less than 8 feet from me I get a hard hit and a good 20 feet of line hums off my reel as this fish takes off across the creek. This thing dove down into the middle of the creek and made a mad dash upstream. Finally landed a nice 16 inch smallie that was all muscle and shaped like a football.





A couple of casts later I picked up a 12 inch smallie that thought it was much bigger. I pitched a cast under the branch that I was hung up on and let the jig get down to the bottom where it got stuck on one of the boulders. I popped it off the rock and immediately got hit by a 14 inch smallie.



As I waded back down the pool I picked up another dink smallie. Remember, I had already walked through all of this water casting up stream and catching nothing. Now just the opposite was happening. My theory on this is that you're stirring up the bottom with all the bugs. Bait fish are coming in to feed on the bugs. Smallies are coming in to feed on the bait fish. That's why when I'm told that I shouldn't be wading down stream while fishing because I'm kicking up silt and the fish don't like it, my usual response is . . . yeah, okay.

I got back to the first hole where I started and cast to the back of it and dragged the lure upstream to the rock bar. Another hard hit, but it was nothing like the first one. At least this one was hooked and I can live with a 14 inch smallie.





I wandered down stream and had a field day picking up creek chubs, but not another hit from a smallie. I thought for sure I would run into Nat again, but by the time I got back to my car, his was gone. I hope he got something out of the stretch I sent him down. I checked out 3 more spots on the creeks while heading for home, thinking I might stop one more time. But the sun was high enough overhead that every spot I stopped to fish, the sun was beating down on the water. I know this is rarely a good thing and called it quits for the day.

In all I got one smallie out of Big Rock Creek and 5 out of Little Rock Creek, plus the endless supply of creek chubs. I was only out about three and a half hours and it seems like half of that was spent driving to spots or hiking through the woods. Every day at 4 AM it starts to get light out and the song birds start waking up. My cat thinks it needs to be outside around then, so it's morning ritual is to put its face about 2 inches from mine and start meowing. At that point, I'm up.

Tomorrow when that happens I'm getting up and going fishing somewhere. No point wasting the best part of the day sleeping.

Excellent pictures Ken. Glad you got out and found some fish. Something tells me your Sunday morning trip will yield similar/better results. I look forward to those pictures also.

Sunday was a relative dud. Went to the Mazon. Missed more than caught. By 9 AM when the sun was hitting the water it was too damn hot already. Called it quits before 10.

Ken G wrote:Sunday was a relative dud. Went to the Mazon. Missed more than caught. By 9 AM when the sun was hitting the water it was too damn hot already. Called it quits before 10.

Buddy of mine that lives on Lake Holiday fishes the Mazon regularly. When we spoke Friday at Ribfest, he swore up and down about a spot further downstream than I have ever been.

I had only fished the area around the BSA camp before, so I was interested in what he was talking about. Unfortunately we couldn't sit and chat as Sammy Haggar was about to go onstage, and he was intent on seeing his performance.

I'll be seeing him again Sunday, and we will certainly talk about that stretch.


I'm shocked it wasn't better out there for you. Summer was always great on that river for me.

The Gortowski shuffle.

Anyone who has watched and caught big smallies feeding in the debris cloud behind carp rooting on the bottom knows better. That debris cloud is the dinner bell ringing.

I've had people watch me catch fish retrieving a crankbait against the current tell me I was doing it wrong and just got lucky. I usually tell them the fish don't read the articles in magazines or the books on the shelves.

Norm Minas wrote:Anyone who has watched and caught big smallies feeding in the debris cloud behind carp rooting on the bottom knows better. That debris cloud is the dinner bell ringing.

I've had people watch me catch fish retrieving a crankbait against the current tell me I was doing it wrong and just got lucky. I usually tell them the fish don't read the articles in magazines or the books on the shelves.

I've been telling people to cast at carp too, for years. Makes me wonder why others don't think of it. Last presentation I ever gave to a club I was getting a lot of questions about that down stream approach. One of the guys in the audience turned to his doubting club members and said . . . all the good river fishermen know to cast down stream.

I quit reading how to mags and books a long time ago. Last In-Fisherman river fishing article I read said to fish mid stream humps in 10 feet of water. Okay, not where I go. I find myself re-reading my Paul Quinnett books. You'd like them Norm.

As for the Mazon, I missed a few nice fish. One felt heavier than anything I've had hooked so far this year and I've caught some nice ones in the 16 to 18 inch range.

Road trips for September Ed. Fox River from the Illinois to Wedron and Kayak Morris is across from the mouth of the Mazon. They also rent canoes. There is one trip where you can go paddle up the Mazon. That river splits into two and you basically paddle around it in a big circle. I'm sure it's not flowing much, but pretty much every fish probably goes in and out to the Illinois at some point. I would think the September runs on the Fox and Mazon could be pretty good if you hit it right.

Paul quinnett is in my library.

Nice report Ken, I should be up and running next week been busy as hell

Seems to me that you haven't missed much Sam. The river levels have sucked for over a month.