Shorthead redhorse

I've been fishing for suckers the last while in an attempt to get a few of the species I'm missing. I've been hoping for a quillback but today a shorthead redhorse answered my call. The small fish sucked in a #12 beaded green caddis .

The La Salle River is full of white suckers right now and I've literally caught 100s while hooking only one golden redhorse and this shorthead. Yesterday, while fishing Sturgeon Creek, I found a pod of these fish that seemed to be grazing on the algae on the river rocks in fairly shallow water. After about a hour, I did hook one on a #16 pheasant tail but it got off. Other than that one fish, all ignored a nymph, including some dangled right in front of their face.

Panfish hunting...How not to

No new species to report but enough good stuff happened to put up a blog post. Was going to stay off the water today but around 10:30 I got an ich that just needed scratching. I decided to go after panfish and loaded up with small flies and my 4 wt rod.

First cast hooked a fairly nice fish, a 17 1/2" white sucker. Not a giant but quite a fight with the 4 wt.

Second fish was a 24" channel cat which kept me on my toes and nervously hoping the cat had forgotten about the brush just downstream of the pool.

A couple of small crappies later I got a solid take that was to test the limits of my flyrod. A 29" channel cat and new record for my 4 wt. Maybe a MA on this rod is in the works? (Just checked an old post and found my biggest channel cat on this 4 wt is actually 32")



A big fish day with a smattering of small walleye, crappie, rock bass, pike and sauger and another great afternoon on the river with a fly rod.

Another two...

Took my grandkids fishing to the La Salle River today and normally don't even bring a rod along because they keep me pretty busy untangling lines, removing and baiting hooks and trying to free snags. Since they are no longer rookies, I threw the flyrod and a few flies into the back of the car and as it turns out, I'm pretty glad I did. The kids fished till about 4:00, catching a number of bullheads, suckers and even a nice channel cat before heading home for supper. Out came the fly rod...I hadn't a clue what species those suckers were and I needed a specimen to pose for some pictures. It wasn't long before I caught one, as a matter of fact before the day ended I managed about a dozen, the first few on a flashy, #10 bead-headed nymph and the rest on a brown #8 leech pattern. A check with my fish keys at home revealed all the suckers caught were the common white sucker.

White sucker

I even managed a brown bullhead, another species I hadn't caught yet.There were loads of both species of bullhead in the pool but they seldom go after a fly, in my experience anyway. The way I usually catch them is to hang a small nymph under an indicator and plop it right into their midst. Eventually one of them seems to grab the nymph. This time I caught it using a leech pattern while trying for the suckers.

This river has an unusual high number of species on any given part and today I also caught some crappies, rock bass, walleye, sauger and pike. I even watched the resident mink drag in a sucker that was 1 1/2 time as long as itself.