Slow day at the Monee Reservoir

Monee Reservoir Shoreline

When I turned into the parking lot at the Monee Reservoir right at 6:00 am, I was surprised to see quite a few cars in the lot already. I wound up being 5th or 6th in line to rent a boat for the day. I was on the water by 6:20 hoping for one of the big bass that swim in that lake.

It didn't take long before I hooked one. The fish took the plastic worm I was throwing and made a powerful run before it jumped and threw the whole thing back at me. I got a good look though and was kicking my self for not setting the hook a second time. This would have been one of the biggest Largemouth Bass I'd caught all year.

First Catfish of the day

I continued working my way around the lake and had another fish grab the worm and make a powerful run. I got a good hookset into the fish this time but quickly realized that it wasn't a bass on the other end of line. I could feel the tell-tale head shake of a good sized catfish and sure enough, that's what it was. I brought it to the boat and unhooked it without removing it from the water.

Second Catfish of the day

Bass were no where to be found. The concession worker told me he thought the storms had them shut down and it sure seemed like he was right on. He's there everyday and knows what's going on so I figured I'd change tactics. I started throwing a crank bait and quickly hooked another nice fish. It wasn't as big as the first one, but it was still able to toss the lure before I got the fish to the boat. Another foot and it would have been in the net that I was leading him towards.

Since the bass were not cooperating, I decided I'd try throwing live night crawlers into the open holes in the lily pads. I never use live bait but figure it couldn't hurt to give it a shot. I had a couple fish grab the worms but think they were bluegills because they'd pull and then there'd be nothing. I gave up on that pretty quick.

Monee Reservoir Lily Pads

I started to make another trip around the lake and manged to catch another good Catfish on a plastic worm, and 4 smaller Largemouth on crank baits. My trip was then cut short by a phone call telling me a hose had come apart on my pool and we'd lost a foot of water. Luckily that took a flathead screw driver and less than 60 seconds to fix.

Typical Largemouth Bass for today

One thing that I noticed was that a few times a dragon fly would get close to landing on a lily pad, there'd be a swirl. Since the skies were bright blue, I knew the bass that weren't deep would be tight to cover and seeing a couple bass go after dragonflies at least let me know they were in there. They weren't around the edges but backed well into the pads - away from the area I spent most of time targeting. Next time I'll have a rod rigged with 50lb braid so I can get something through those pads closer to the shoreline.