Northern Illinois ice fishing

[Guest]

I live in Rockford and normally ice fish in Wisconsin. My group of hard water fishermen friends want to fish in our home state this year also. Anybody have any favorite Northern Illinois areas?

[Guest]

Hello fishey fireman, maybe you can try the chain o lakes. It's pretty good.

[Guest]

Hey grinch, the chain is a lot of water. Should I locate the same hot spots listed on the maps for normal season or do the ice fisherman have some special formulas for locating them? Pardon my ignorance, but isn't the chain fairly shallow?

[Captain Ken]

Hi Fishy,

Some lakes are shallow (Grass, much of Fox) but Channel, Marie, Catherine and Petite are favorites in open and hard water. The breaks are wehere most people concentrate on these lakes--Channel and Catherine have some nice steep breaklines. Take a look at a lake map for these lakes and you will see them. McDermott's or Mentone's (Rt 173 E of Antioch) are places one can access Channel lake. Can probably go out of Bob's (also on 173) for Catherine, but not sure what their policies are. Bunch of places on Marie including Sandbar (rt 59 N of Grass Lake Rd) and Barnacle Bobs. The standard for Petite is Kempf's (off of Grass Lake Rd -have to turn S on a residential street after the Smith's bridge).

Now, all we need is the ice. Keeping fingers tentatively crossed given that we are below freezing. Have not been to chain recently so I have no idea what the ice is looking like.

Ken

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Captain Ken Kessler
www.captainken.com
Guiding in Illinois and North East Minnesota
847-970-9108 Illinois
218-742-4680 Minnesota

[Guest]

Hello again Fishy fireman, Lake marie is pretty deep Lake. I would go to the local bait shops and ask what lake's there biting on. If I were you I would head out on Marie. The other Lakes are good to. Look for the crowds of people on the ice and set up there to start. Maybe we will have a ice soon... The Grinch.

[Guest]

Thanks for the Chain info. Do you guys have any Mississippi info? I hear people talking about hitting the ice by Savannah, Illinois.

[Guest]

ONe more question. Should I plan for a long dragging operation or do people drive on the Chain when there is ice?

[Guest]

FF- A couple things for you. First- you're not allowed to drive on the ice in Illinois so nobody drives on the Chain- other than ATV's and such. If you fish from Mentones or McDermotts- you can walk it pretty easily to either North or South side of the lake. A couple other possibilities in the area are Deep Lake, Elizabeth (actually right across the border in WI) or Cedar Lake in Lake Villa but there's restricted access. Email me at [email protected] and I'll tell ya some additional info. The other option which is not too far from you is Shabbona south of Dekalb. 300 acres- very walkable and good fishing for a variety of species. Right now- our ice is "iffy". We've got 3-5" in many spots but soft ice in others (Bangs Lake in Wauconda had a snowmobiler and daughter go in on 12/26- both recovered from the H20 safely- by fishermen I might add...) but the ice isn't making fast. We're still too warm during the day and not getting down to single digits or lower enough at night- this weekend won't help that with temps through Monday 12/30 predicted into the mid 40's during the day... another El Nino- just what we DONT need. Email me with info if you wanna take this further. I live near the border of Lake and McHenry counties- happy to help when and if I can.

Todd Berg
www.intotheoutdoors.net