DuPage Angler Waggs Hops His

 Way To A Will County Lunker

Will County / Local Pond

DuPage Angler Waggs and namrehsif were fishing a small pond for bass using frogs. We took a trip to Gander mountain earlier in the day to purchase a new frog. I had seen the Big Foot frogs before but I thought they looked gimmicky. But they looked fun and sounded promising so I thought I would give it a try.

We fished plenty of the scum and got many hits but couldn't hook up any bass. We fished through the morning till around 1:30 pm and decided to go back out around 6 pm. Returning to the scum, we were getting less hits and getting desperate to hook up a fish. The bigfoot lure can be fished like a popper as well as a buzz bait and i had been periodically trying it throughout the day. I started to focus on slowly retrieving it back and finally got a hit when it was cast out towards the middle and slowly reeled back in. I didn't hook him up. I quickly finished the retrieve and sent it back out. I reeled him back the same way and WHAM. He smashed it and took it for a ride. Set the hooks real hard and managed to get him ashore where I frantically had Brandon aka namrehsif hold the rod so I could get at him. Good fun and a good catch!

DuPage Angler Wacky

 Rigs Himself To A 18

 Inch Largemouth

DuPage County / Forest Preserve / Churchill

DuPage Angler Chris86 went to Churchill Woods on the border of Glen Ellyn and Lombard, IL and here is his story:

Yesterday I had some downtime after work in the late afternoon so of course I went fishing for a little while. I decided to head over to one of my favorite spots, Churchill Woods in Lombard. I've been having luck using soft plastics on the Dupage River so I decided to use a wacky-rigged senko worm. I pulled this 18-incher out from near a fallen tree after a couple casts in the area. I caught a smaller lm in the same area. There are some nice sized fish in the area.

DuPage Angler Jigs His

 Way To 10 Bass On The

 DuPage River

DuPage County / Naperville / Veterans Park

DuPage Angler Jared Voss decided that it was about time to meet this Wacky Bass character from DuPageAngler.com fame.  What better way than to meet at the Veterans Park in Naperville, IL.  The area has been rumored to be loaded with smallmouth and rock bass. The water levels were low enough to slowly fish the shallow river in about knee high water.

The first 20 minutes were a complete disaster for one of the founders of DuPageAngler.com, due to the inadequate line that was put on his reel only an hour earlier.  DuPage Angler Jared Voss however was working a jig on the bottom and hit many feisty DuPage County smallies almost instantly.

We are happy to report that Wacky Bass was able to pick up another rod from his vehicle, setup a small Jitterbug, and had plenty of topwater action before the sun sank.  What a day!
 

DuPage Angler Lands

 Massive Wheaton Bass

DuPage County / Park District

The clock read 2:30 PM in my car and the radio was telling me the temperature was at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. I was still sitting in the parking lot of COD deciding whether I should head home and get some much needed sleep. But after pulling in a nice bass with my newly acquired DuPage Topper, I thought “Oh, what the heck, I’m going fishing!”

I head over to a pond in Wheaton, which lately, many DuPage Anglers are raving about. I’m walking down to the pond and the sun is beating down on me. Boy was it hot! All along the shoreline there was scum lined up hiding the monster bass.

I sent my first cast right at the edge of the muck. A couple twitches later and it was FISH ON! The bass took my line deep into the weeds and scum that line the shoreline. By the time I got it to shore, there was no fish to be seen under all that slime! I measured the bass and it came in at 16.5in.  My 8lb fluorocarbon line was not holding up too well against the scum. Trying to avoid the disaster of losing a monster bass, I head back to the car and grab my the pole that I used to fish hybrid stripers with my dad.

Thank goodness I did! I sent the lure out again around the same area as my first cast. I twitched the lure all the way into the muck. The topper was stuck on the edge and it was rattling away. BOOM! The bass exploded right out of the water. My first day with a topwater lure was really paying off! I pulled this hog up to shore through all the grime with a G. Loomis 6’6” MH and Shimano Stella with ease. Good thing I switched lines, otherwise I wouldn’t have had a chance. I measured this monster and it came in at a whopping 19in. I believe this to be my biggest bass this summer. Thanks DuPage Angler for this opportunity to know what topwater fishing is all about!

 

DuPage Angler Chatters

His Way To Huge Bass

DuPage County / Local Pond

The morning of August 22 was full of pre-bass tension for three DuPage Anglers.  The sky was clear, the air was still and DuPage Angler D Lunker knew that he would score, he just didn't know how big and how often. 

DuPage Lunker caught over 7 bass that weighed at and over 3 pounds.

DuPage Angler Lands Four

Pound DuPage Bass

DuPage County / Park District

On a tip from DuPage Angler Robar144 (Many Thanks), I went to Meijer and picked up a 3/16oz white Booyah! spinner bait to try out for myself.  I and a few other DA members went to a local hot spot today and as I was reeling in dodging smeg and listening to an indulging story about how Wacky Bass lost his spinner bait to a rather feisty nothern pike this weekend, line started screaming off my reel and as most of you know by now, I use ultra light setups (Shout out to Mr. Bill Dance) haha.

Before I knew what was happening, I was shouting "It's big...no wait it's small" to Wacky and trying to prevent this beast from breaking my rod.  After some tense moments and gaining back my footing, I hauled this green goon ashore for a photo op and I am happy to say with a weigh in of 4lb's, I have successfully completed my goal of a "Pig in August".  

DuPage Angler Rattles

 Huge Herrick

 Lake Bass

DuPage County / Herrick Lake

One very hot and humid afternoon I decided to kill a few hours by heading across town to Herrick Lake. I had been fishing the lake heavily in the preceding weeks and caught between three to five ten inchers a day on average. This particular day however, I was having terrible luck. I actively fished around the entire lake with soft plastics and spinners (my usual go-to's) and didn't catch a thing. Four hours in the heat and a lack of success finally broke my spirit and I decided it was time to call it a day and head home.

I was heading to the car on the northern side of the lake when I decided to try a brand new bait I had gotten the day before. It was a 1/2 oz. Imitation Bluegill Rat-L-Trap. I had seen some decent Largemouth cruising this area earlier in the day so I decided to stop and give it a go. I stood along the edge and casted the relatively heavy lure about 20 yards from me and 10 feet away from the wall, running it parallel to shore. I was observing the action of my new lure, when halfway through my retrieve I saw a thing of beauty which any Bass fisherman could recognize, that wonderful golden flash. The fish was on the run before I was able to compute what was happening. I gave a hard tug and the long fight was on. I played the fish slowly after feeling how heavy it was. Luckily I was able to keep the fish out of the weeds, because she would have easily broken me off. She bulldogged me back and forth, in and out, for fifteen minutes before I could bring her close enough to grab. Once I grabbed her it was almost hard to keep a hold my adrenaline had me shaking so bad!

A father and son (who is pictured) picnicking near me ran over when they saw the size of my fish. I got my picture and moved quickly to get this beautiful fish back in the water. When the man saw that I was reviving and going to release the fish, he asked for it. Upon my quick "no" he offered me fifteen dollars for the fish! The fifteen dollars would have been nice to have, but the opportunity for me or a fellow fisherman to catch this beauty when she's even bigger is worth more than money.

And by the way, listening to Hank Williams Sr. while you're fishing really does increase your luck

DuPage Angler Spins For

Spillway Bass

DuPage County / Will County

I caught this bass in south Naperville on the edge of Dupage/Will County. The weather was overcast and around 80-85 degrees. I used a #4 Mepps spinner with a gold willow blade and a yellow skirt. We decided to fish at one of our favorite locations and on our favorite spot which is a concrete spill way that had a lot of water moving through it because of the recent rain.

There were lots of leaves and vegetation moving through the water and a lot of fish hanging just at the edge of the heaviest current of the spillway. I used a fast retrieve leading up to this area,keeping the lure about 5 inches below the surface of the water. Right as the lure got to the edge of the fastest moving water this beast hit the lure and was pulled in with surprising ease considering his size. The moving water I reeled him in through might have thrown him off. DupageAngler Waggs only wishes he could have baptized his new pole with this fish!
 

DuPage Angler Nails Pig On A

 Spinner In DuPage County

DuPage County / DuPage River / Naperville

I decided to hit “old faithful” today, Lund Lake. Since the weather has warmed quite a bit in the last few weeks I have been catching only smaller shoreline Bass and very few at that. I decided that I would take a ride out to Lund Lake.

At 3pm I started out with a white 3/8 Booyah spinner. After tossing my fourth attempt I felt the smash of this beast. It hit the bait about 10ft off shore and gave a good fight. After this guy I began cycling through the baits that I had chosen for the day; GY Senko, Booyah spinner & various cranks, the fish continued to bump the spinner. I would have undoubtedly caught a few more if I would have switched to a smaller bait selection but today it was get a big one day.
 

DuPage Angler Finds Great

 Smallie Fishing In

 Naperville, IL

DuPage County / DuPage River / Naperville

Catching Smallies with my Bro

Last week I decided to drag my little brother fishing with me down at the Dupage River around downtown Naperville. It took awhile convincing him to come along and by the time we arrived at our spot there was about 1 ½ hours left in the day. I had a feeling that the evening bite would be on because the water levels were low and I could already see bass hitting little bugs on the surface. I started fishing by showing my brother how to work the tube jig I set him up with and on my first cast which I did for pure instruction my line zipped downstream and a little bronzeback jumped out of the water with the strength that only a smallmouth could muster.

Over the next hour my brother and I worked up and down the bank with dark green small tubes rigged up with a tube jig and caught about 9 bass total. Within the last 10 minutes of light left I walked over to a new spot I hadn’t seen before and studied the water as it gave away a perfect current break about 10 feet out where I just knew a bass would be waiting. I tossed my jig about a foot past the swirling water to where the current flowed past and gave it a quick hop. Once my jig passed across the current break a heavy tug started on my line and I leaned into it and gave a sturdy hook set. I could tell this was a nice fish by the way it stayed deep in the water and used the current to fight instead of jumped wildly like the earlier ones. I finally fought it to shore and landed a nice heavy smallmouth bass. What a great way to end the night.

Dupage Lunker