Finally Got Out...

Had a lot of errands to overcome today, including getting my taxes prepared...good news is I don't owe anything. Well, errands being done, I naturally grabbed my 4 favorite rods, a couple tackle bags and my favorite hat and headed down to the Kankakee River.

My goal was to fish the main river channel for some walleyes, but as I passed over the river it was much too high for what I had in mind. Undaunted, I drove onward to one of my fishable ditches...the first one I went to was almost completely dry, the farmers must be anticipating some heavy rains this Spring as they certainly got them last year - one of the farmers I talk to down there regularly told me that last year he lost 2 of the 3 crops he normally puts in due to flooding. This year he didn't put in any Winter wheat, so I'm assuming that he is draining his ditches and attempting to make it with only 2 crops, possibly only one.

Drove on to my second ditch and was greeted by a multitude of various types of birds, blackbirds, swallows, wrens, buzzards, crows and even a few frogs jumping off the bank as I approached. I started off with my number one Springtime bait, a 1/2 oz. VBX chartreuse fishscale spoon with a 4" section of a chartreuse Culprit worm for a trailer...casting took a little getting used to as the wind was gusting at between 30 - 40 mph, but after a few minutes, I managed a light tap, and missed! The following cast I slowed down my retrieve a little more, then dead stopped the bait approximately where I felt the tap, then just as I started to lift the spoon off the bottom the fish committed - definitely a dink, a little twelve incher that fought like it was bigger, that always makes my day.

I found that the only hits I was able to get today was when I cast my offering directly into the wind; downwind casts proved futile, and cross wind casts were much too difficult to control. I moved down to another area I wanted to hit and just my luck, 3 people were camped right on top of the hole...undaunted, I took a hike about an eighth of a mile downwind from their position, and began to cast into the wind - on the second cast I caught another dink, this one at 13.5 inches. I could hear them grumbling down the way..."what the heck! we've been here for hours and this guy drives up and gets one right away..." I certainly didn't mean to ruin it for them, so I walked back to my vehicle, put my rod back up, then walked over and told them they needed to cast directly into the wind...obviously, they didn't believe me, because as I drove away they were still casting with their backs to the wind.

Managed to endure the wind for an hour and a half, then my back started hurting so I packed up and went home.

...all in all, another fine day down by the Kankakee!