r/ChicagoFishing

Caught my first smally on the fly rod today! It has taken about a year, a ton of frustration, today it was all worth it.

Absolutely insane fight. Never caught a carp before so never experienced anything like it. I cant believe it didnt straighten out the hook or bust the 10lbs mono.

Getting the band back together finally from the darkness of winter. Carp have finished spawning and openly swimming and eating. Rock bass and smallies back in the non discharge parts of the river.

Hey Yall,

Had a day near montrose/belmont harbors fishing the concrete beach shore with rocks. Going for smallies. Used chatterbait, tube, ned rig, and finally small plastic swimbaits. The ned and plastic swimbaits were getting bit up just beyond the rocks, but felt more like bluegill type bites. Caught nothing.

Any advice??? Felt super good going into today and feel like I fished every lure really well. Was out there for 3 hours.

Using mh rod with 6ft fluro leader

Also look at this goby my buddy snagged haha. Got it off and it swam off

Mostly Ned rigs along harbor walls and the concrete beach boulders

Man, you gotta go really far down to find the Drum flair. Thought for a good minute I enticed the coveted 5-lb. smallie from the Montgomery surf only to see the hump-back break the surface. First-ever drum weighed 5.5-lbs. and measured 24 inches. Is that good? I’m still big bait/big fish mentality and this one clobbered a 3 1/2-inch, multi-jointed bluegill. Apologies for the garbage vid. Pics are even worse; I’ll put one in the comments. Now thankful it wasn’t the smallie til I get the after-dark snaps figured out.

Hello fellow fishermen!

I will visit your wonderful city and area for almost 3 weeks because of work. Since I like fishing, I thought it would be a great idea to fish around. Since I'm coming from Europe I dont have any experince fishing in US.

I have a Kyorim K1 C624L travel fishing rod and a Tsurinoya Dark Wolf reel. It's a BFS setup.

I packed a few things together, and I took a picture but I didn't notice the glare on the lures. Sorry about that. I can't take a new picture at the moment unfortunately.

Do you think it is worth it to fish around with this setup?

Also, I can't bring a fishing net with me. Of course I am able to buy some lures and bait. I am aware I have to buy a license, but I am not aware all possible restrictions. I will be based in Homewoods Suites Aurora/Naperville hotel, there are a few lakes around. Is it allowed to fish there? In Chicago I will be in the loop next to the Wil... Sears Tower :)

Thank you in advance and tight lines! :)

Guy at the fly shop said I should try carp on it, so here is carp on it

Hot bite this weekend at the NSC. Caught this pig with a mepps aglia spinner.

At Belmont

With absolutely zilch to support it, conditions “just felt right” to connect with a really big smallie tonight. No dice there but not without an adrenaline rush when two juvenile flatheads ambushed a jointed swim bait (blue gill) on back-to-back casts. Adrenalin burst because these things put the hammer down and you think “nice smallie!” before things start to get suspicious. Wouldn’t mind wrestling one of those 30/40-pounders someday. Anybody ever tussled with the kind that requires two hands in the mouth to hoist it up for a snap?