Top water smallies!

[Bearetta]

Wednesday i hit the Illinois with good friend and grandson in Kayaks to float and catch a few fish.
River was perfect and nobody on it at dawn till 11 when we saw our first paddler.

Day started out with a bang as I threw the Tiny Torpedo up in the shallows and a wake appears behind my lure and sucks it down.
Things get crazy from there as I couldn’t paddle because both hands were on that rod, tried my best to steer the fish but she was dragging my boat from the shallows to the current and snags. Then she explodes from the water in front of my grandson shaking her head to try and throw the bait, but it held. Then she dove back in and screamed for the underwater log and snagged it under and on the other side. I finally was able to get out of my kayak and wade over to try and retrieve both to know avail. Grandson said it was 7 lbs. I saw it over my shoulder and will say the head on it and big ol bucket mouth was that big. Biggest I have ever seen on that river.

Then on to fish, catching dinks, trying Ned rigs only to return to the top water after losing the Ned. I caught probably 10 fish on the torpedo and then the last one put on another show. 3# Smallie takes it and screams downstream and the comes up and out to flip, shake its head and throw that bait back to me. Audience of paddlers got a thrill. I did too.

We were off the river by 11:30 and home by 1:30. We all had a good time, again. Fun fishing and wading that river.

[65panhed]

Great!

[OkieLure]

Fun times/better memories!

[Bearetta]

Picked up a new Jackson Bite Angler Kayak.
Nice fishing chair sit on top.
Can’t wait to get it on the river this week!

[Gambler95]

There’s some monster smallies in that river and big LMB too. We floated a popular stretch last month and a buddy of mine caught a 20”+ walleye just bf the takeout at No Head.