Fishing A River In North East Illinois

[Norm M]

water temps mid 30's, clearer than I like, still above normal flow. due to the clearer water algae back on the bottom in various stretches . air temps not bad, fished thru light rain on one of the trips.

I fished a series of slack water areas on one trip, primary catch was smallmouth bass with some walleye mixed in. rattlebaits on the current seam got some , a topwater in the slack part of an eddy got one smallmouth, a suspending rogue twitched with long pauses got the most smallmouth and the handful of walleye .

I fished a series of inflows on another trip, mostly walleye, a couple of smallmouth bass. A suspending rogue, drift, twitch, drift worked best. the hits came on the twitches .

I fished some slack areas associated with bluffs , smallmouth bass the only species caught. A jig/pig was the only lure that got bit. It took an extremely slow, inching retrieve with frequent pauses to get fish