Sunday night I got a wild hair up my ass and I decided that Kankakee really isn't that far from my work, and that they are in the same general direction from my house, so of course I should go try to fish the river on my Monday before closing the brewery. The weather looked favorable, and if I got out of the house at a reasonable time I could fish for a few hours, and still get to work in plenty of time. I looked through some old posts here about where good places to go might be, and where I could put my car. I decided to take the easy route since I've never been down there before, which was park near Warner bridge and find my way around.
I got there around 9:30 and there were two guys right at the shore, one with a fly rod, and another with a spinning setup and crank bait. I walked in upstream from them a little, and could see another guy fly fishing on the north side of the river, just a bit up. So I opted to stay away from all of them and pick my way around a bit on the south side. The water was clear, very clear. Much less green and murky than the stretch of the Fox that I saw last weekend. There were however, weeds everywhere. I started by throwing that rebel craw that has so much awesome wobble action and every retrieve came back with greens that I had to pick off. The trebles were catching anything it touched.
I know that part of fishing a new spot means that you're going to have to do a lot of discovery and get the feel of the land before you're likely to have much success, but I tried fishing all kinds of different pools, seams, riffles, everything that looked like it would have fish in it with no luck. I made it to the bridge and switched to a white twisty tail grub to see if I would bring back less green on every cast. A little upstream from the bridge I saw this idyllic looking riffle.
That screams fish to me, but there was nothing going on. I hadn't even seen any fish beyond minnows and a few tiny bluegill swimming through the weeds.
I worked my way farther upstream and did see a fin sticking out of the water.
It was what looked like a carp carcass missing it's head.
Further upstream I finally found a patch on the south side of the river that had very little weed growth. It was near a duck blind, which I assume is one of those lottery pick deals where you get up at 2 am and wait until the game warden calls your name so that you can hunt on state park land. Anyway, I finally started to see fish. I saw a smallie sitting in a seam and as soon as my grub got near it swam away like I electrocuted it. I saw some largemouth nearer to shore, and the same deal. They weren't having any of it. I think I waded about a mile upstream and it was noon which meant I needed to make it to the trail to get back and on the road in time to make it to work. I did see a dog poop sign on the trail.
(I have photos of these signs from all over the world.)
So Norm, Ken, et. al. what was I likely doing wrong? That stretch just a bad one? Poor technique? Too many weeds? Wrong lure? I'd definitely like to go back again soon, it's a really nice looking place to fish, and there's a lot of river to cover. It's a lot easier for me to head down there for a few hours, and then backtrack to Munster than drive all the way out to the Fox on a Monday morning.