Fished the Saw wee Kee stretch down stream from Orchard Road. Two visits ago I caught virtually nothing. My last one here was when I caught a few and kept getting my twister pulled from my jig.
If you missed my other post on fishing potential, go find it and read it. I think it was the 3rd.
The potential of a good trip has gone up dramatically. Missed between 20 and 30 fish. From the long day of fishing my back felt like someone had stuck a knife in it. This made me lose count and my hook setting ability suffered. Near the end every step was hurting and of course, I missed the big ones. Did get to feel them and watch them swirl and jump. I wound up landing 10 or 11 of those fish. That all happened before the pain kicked in and it might have been 12 or 13, but I had pretty much given up by then. I basically fished my way back to the car. The walk was going to hurt whether I was casting or not, so may as well cast.
The tractor shots were taken in 2004. He high tailed it out of there when the pictures were taken. It's illegal to redirect the water by grading the bottom of the river without permits from the Army Corps and the IDNR I believe. He obviously knew this. At low water, the river barely flows through this area. Big homes, rich people, total disregard for environmental law. Denny Hastert and his then press secretary live along this stretch of the river. I hate to sound like a class snob, but it is what it is. They were trying to get more water to flow past million dollar homes.
Apparently they are at it again. The gravel shot above the tractor shots was taken today and the current flow was totally different through this area. I fish this stretch all the time and I just noticed this gravel bar about a month ago. Look to the left of the gravel bar. That is how that whole shore looked all the way to the tree on the right. This is not caused by high water moving things around. At high water it cuts that bank right off. Besides, I don't think the river dumped that pile of river rock further back on the shore.
Can't decide if I care enough to report it. It actually works pretty well and doesn't look out of place.
You should see some of the other stuff I come across. I really should start screwing with people that screw up the shore line. There's just so many of them I don't know where to start.
Again, it's not about the fish but the background. I was throwing the jig and twister on the first foot of shore and popping it off the rocks and back into the water. Four of the smallies were caught doing this. If you would bother to look where the bait fish are the next time you walk up to a shore like this, you'll understand why you need to try this.
