12-29 flooded river in illinois

[Norm M]

River is flowing at 43,500 CFS, usual 3.780 CFS . Water temps at 35 degrees , zero visibility. There was a regular parade of debris headed downstream , some of it very sizeable . Parking lots flooded, gates to boat ramps in the state park both locked . Cloud cover, wind not too bad, air temps 33 to 34 degrees . Raw enough to wear gloves while moving twixt spots , wore the waders mostly to cut the wind and keep the mud off . Minimal entry into water , deepest I got was knee deep on a paved flooded bike path that had minimal flow . Passed on fishing a creekmouth that generally holds fish in high water due to muddy sloping banks that had way to much current to contemplate venturing on .

I fished with one lure all day, a weighted keeper hook 1/0 or 2/0 depending on flow or what I was trying to accomplish with the lure.. The plastic was a BfishN 3.25 inch pulse worm. It has a paddletail that the maker says works well at slow speeds. Slow speeds was the initial thought in these water temps, cover and current conditions.

The type of cover/ current that produced best was debris piles in slower, slacker water. Tossing it on top of the pile and letting it drop straight down of the downstream side was not as good as letting it wash under the upstream side of a debris pile. I used the 2/0 to drop down and the 1/0 to wash under around the debris piles. Then it was pretty much a matter of letting it sit still for a while . If that didn't get picked up, squeezing the rod enough to make the tip quiver or softly bounce was the next thing I tried. That worked better than the dead sticking so I went with that. 2 smallmouth, 1 rock bass and 4 walleye, nothing of great size but at least I caught some fish .

The only other situation that produced fish was the sloping area from the bike path down to where the normal shoreline is. There I used the 2/0 and dragged it along the bottom with frequent pauses. The fastest the jig ever moved was when it popped free from a snag . Both fish, nice sized carps ate it when I started the dragging motion after a pause.

Fishing flooded objects like trees, grills or parking blocks did not produce. Most of the picnic tables had been taken to storage for the winter. The few that remained are on higher ground where it does not flood . Someone finally used some common sense