Thread: Illinois River Fishing today- full of different species.

Took my son, grandson, wife and father-in-law to the state fair yesterday and had a wonderful day with them. Today a buddy and I went fishing on the Illinois River. It was a shake out run for our trip to Canada in a couple weeks. We launched at 7.30ish from the Pekin boat ramp and headed south. Off the water by 12.30.

Last year we targeted Smallies and Northern in Canada, this year we want to target Walleye too. We found a spot in the river downstream from an island that has a shallow strip that separates the main river channel from a side channel. Its a pretty steep drop off, river main channel is about 15' and within a 5' span it climbs to 3', once over the hump it drops back down to 5' or so. We fished the 5' channel most of the day. I started out and stayed with a Lindy style rig. 3/8 ounce sinker, snaplock swivel, 3' leader to a floating chartreuse green jig head. Laced on 1/2 a night crawler and fished this rig all morning. My buddy switched several times and finally ended up with a similar set-up, except he went pink floating jig.

I ended up with a bottle nose garr (I think that's its name), several sheepshead, and several catfish. Not one walleye, however I was surprised what else could be caught in the river.