Salt Creek at Sunset

Salt Creek at sunset

Had a little bit of time to get out today, so I took the opportunity to hit up some water! Once again, due to it's distance from my house, the Fox was out of the question... I decided to visit a place I'd been wanting to fish. I headed to Salt Creek at Arlington Heights Road, which is at the southern tip of Busse woods. I've fished Busse a whole lot, and once even fished the pool there on the south side in a kayak, but never on foot.

Long story short, didn't get a thing. There was another guy fishing at the pool who also didn't catch anything. I "hiked" up the creek to the dam, where nobody else was catching anything. I didn't stay for long; I headed back to the car, then drove to my sure-fire creek spot.

The sun was out and bright, on it's way to setting; the wind was pretty fierce. Even though the air temperature wasn't too bad (45°F I think) I quickly got cold due to the wind. Good thing I had all my layers and my fancy L.L. Bean fuzzy-lined flannel underneath my vest. I busted out my new rod - my one and only ultra-light - and really enjoyed the feel of the small jig on the small rod. I can't wait to land a good-sized fish on it. I'm sure it will feel like a whale!

Within a few minutes, I had a fish! Not a good-sized fish, not a whale.

Very small, but bigger than the shiner yesterday

The fish at this spot, seemingly any time of the year, want nothing to do with artificial lures of any kind (except jigs, as long as there's nightcrawler on them). Nobody wanted my hair jigs, which only slightly offended me. I thought they looked pretty nice. The one above was caught on a nightcrawler on a tiny (1/16oz?) jighead. So was second and last fish I caught today.

So there you have it, catch #2 and #3 of 2012. And each one is bigger than the last! At this rate, by December 2012 I should be landing 60 pound catfish from the retention pond.

Fish #3 of 2012