Mazon River kayak trip

[BenCantrell]

I'll keep the Freshwater Shore Fishing momentum going with another midwest report!  Even though it was a kayak trip, all of the fish were caught from shore.

Yesterday I took a local guy from Peoria up to the Mazon River, which is about an hour southwest of Chicago.  By pure coincidence, a friend from Chicago planned to kayak the same stretch, so we combined our expeditions.  The lower stretch of the Mazon is slow and deep.  The limestone bluffs are scenic, but our target species were further upstream, so we didn't fish here.



The group ready to paddle.



After some good exercise paddling upstream, we set up along a deep trough below a series of rapids.  We didn't get anything too exciting here.  Usually it holds bigger fish.



Channel Catfish


Golden Redhorse - spawning male


The tubercles are like weaponized acne, haha.  They're surprisingly sharp if you run your finger over them.



Smallmouth Bass


Before we paddled further upstream, I got out my dip net and poked around in the riffle above the rapids.

Banded Darter - very gravid female


Spotfin Shiner


We spread out and fished different spots for a while.  I wanted to figure out where the big fish were hanging out, so I climbed up the bluff and walked through the woods for a bit, looking down into the water.  When I came back down, I had a fist full of wild leeks (or ramps as people around here call them) and a good looking stretch of boulder filled water to fish.



Visibility was a few feet, so I couldn't actually see the fish in the deeper water.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, because I didn't have to worry about the fish seeing me.  It can be pretty maddening when you can see fish in crystal clear water, but they refuse to bite.



Bites came pretty quickly.  It was a good spot to fish.  My first catch was a healthy channel catfish, which I took home to pair with the wild leeks.



Next I caught a big female golden redhorse but released it without a photo.  After a few juvenile smallmouth bass, I had another decent fish on the line, and when I saw the red tail I got pretty excited.  It was a river redhorse, state threatened and a new species for my lifelist!



Released unharmed of course, given it's status.



After that I messed around trying to catch darters with micro gear.  The other guys fished a bit more, but we were ready to go after about an hour.

Gerry in his fancy kayak.



Jerod in Ruoxi's kayak (She says I can let anyone use it as long as it's not a cute single girl.  Jerod is single, but he's not cute, and he's not a girl.)



Quick update on my job prospects.  The company I interviewed with says they haven't been able to find any other qualified candidates to interview, but they're still waiting to get official approval for funding before they can hire a bunch of people.  So I guess that's good news.  Hope they let me know soon!

[Latimeria]

No bad news is good news!   Still hoping it all pans out Ben.

On the other side of things, keep the middle of the country fish porn coming!  I really wish I took pics of all the fish that I've caught over my life.  Unfortunately, Disk, 110 or 35mm film to buy and process was expensive for me as a kid and I don't recall any waterproof cameras back in the day, so I have the pics just burned into my brain.   

[SevengillTheVC]

Very cool stuff! I love Smallies, wish there were more bodies of water with em here in Cali!