Adventures in Canoeing on the Rogue River

The Rogue River, through Rockford to its
mouth at the Grand River (our journey)

This post is tremendously overdue.

Although many details have faded due to the time elapsed (it's been almost two weeks since our trip to Michigan!) I feel obligated to record at least part of the story. As I mentioned recently, things have been pretty crazy. I left my job at Columbia College Chicago, started a new one at ChartCapture, and have spent most of my free time fishing. The idea of sitting back down at the computer has not been appealing to me, so I haven't done it! I sit here now, fueled by a big ol' cup of coffee, hoping to get this little story out there and get my personal fishing records all caught up.

I've mentioned my fishing mentors various times here; Mark, Rob, and Luke. They are the trio who introduced me to fishing, got me hooked, and have provided lots of hints and tips along the way. Almost every time Claire and I head back to Michigan for a birthday, holiday, gig, or whatever, I end up fishing with at least one of these guys.

The last trip to Michigan was no different- at 5am (4am my time) I was at Rob's house, trying to down enough coffee to make sense of things, ready for my first time in a canoe.

Turns out, three people in a canoe may not be ideal. Although I've spent a lot of time in kayaks (in the past two years) I'd never been in a canoe until then. It was hard for me to judge whether canoes are just incredibly unstable, or our canoe shouldn't have really had three big dudes in it. Rob, Mark, and I arrived at the Rogue river before sunrise and started casting. Our quarry was trout, and on one of his first casts Rob landed what turned out to be the nicest fish of the day, a 14" brown. Somehow, the only picture I got of it was right before we ate it a few hours later. It was delicious.

EDIT: I found the "before" picture...

What a nice fish right there

What a great fish: great fight, super pretty colors, very tasty

We hopped in the canoe, paddling downstream with the hopes of covering a lot of water. Almost immediately it was clear it was going to be an adventure; even the smallest set of rapids gave us grief, the canoe pounding the rocks, throwing us off balance, teetering closer and closer to the water. One of our first direct hits jolted the canoe, almost tossing us out into the river. Mark was in front "watching for rocks" (each rock would be announced milliseconds before we slammed into it! it made for exciting canoeing) Rob was in back "steering" (who knows where we were going) and I was in the middle doing my best not to rock the boat. Most of the time I crouched down in the canoe, my knuckles white as snow as I clutched the side, expecting a cold river-water ejection any moment.

We hit a big rock, the canoe tipped to the verge of flipping; Mark fell backwards onto me and his ultralight rod, snapping either the rod or me, I couldn't tell. Turns out it was the rod. I have to give mad props to these two gentlemen; for the amount of trouble we had getting down the river, I don't think I heard a single profanity escape their lips! Me on the other hand, well... Let's just say there were two streams that morning: the river, and what was coming from my mouth.

As the morning went on, Mark and Rob both caught trout on little tiny spinners. I was amazed such small spinners could even be cast, let alone land 8-10" rainbow trout. Rob graciously let me borrow one of his ity-bity spinners, which I tied on with haste. I proceeded to miss what seemed like hundreds of trout taking swipes at my spinner. Some of them launched clear out of the water, but none of them connected.

It was exciting and frustrating. I varied my retrieves, faster, slower, faster still; and finally somehow managed to hook my first fish of the day. Before a picture could be taken, the little rainbow propelled itself out of my hands and returned to the water. Soon after that I landed my first brown trout that wasn't a tiny 5" juvenile. Rob came over to document the moment for me; he also documented the exact moment the little brown decided it was time to return to the water, as I desperately tried to keep it in my hands.

Check out that pretty little brown!

..and then it released itself

Great! I caught a brown trout, something that is more or less impossible in Illinois (you can catch them in Lake Michigan, but I've never been able to).

We headed downstream, my knuckles burning from gripping the canoe so tightly, Mark's still functioning malformed and broken rod still able to catch fish, Rob trying to disguise his worry every time we heard scraping and breaking sounds come from the bottom of the canoe... It was a great time. Between rapids I shoved beef jerky and trail mix in my mouth. It was good I wasn't paddling; I would have definitely put us all in the water.

Every time we encountered a fishy spot, we hopped out of the canoe and fished it. As the day went on and wives inquired to our location, we realized we didn't know where we were. My phone had no service; Mark and Rob had partial service. We realized we had a long way to go, and decided to push down the river in earnest.

One of the two rainbows I caught that morning

As we headed downstream, I was amazed how the character of the river changed from stretch to stretch. Some places shallow and rocky with fast current, others deeper sand flats, others rocks and gravel and sand with slower current, others just mud. Astounded would be too light a word to describe how I felt about the water clarity; for the most part I could see completely to the bottom through the gin-clear water. It was awesome.

At one point we reached a set of rapids clearly too much for our overloaded boat. I got out to carry some gear through the forest while Mark and Rob- expert canoe-ists- managed the rapids. I filmed their journey with my camera, but upon later viewing it was clear what the camera saw and they experienced were too different things. What shows up as a .mov file on my computer looks like an easy float downstream I'm sure caused their lives to flash before their eyes.

We desperately paddled (by we I mean they, since I was on canoe-clutching duty sitting in the middle) as the clock ticked and the day aged. Rob suggested I cast a bit while we canoed, so I did. We reached an area that looked like smallie territory, and Rob confirmed indeed it was. Smallies and trout, in one river? My mind exploded a little, but it didn't stop me from casting. Every so often Mark or Rob would point out a particular spot, I'd cast there, hopefully not catching my lure on anything. There was one close call with a tube jig: I had to cut the line or else the force of the canoe might have pulled the rod out of my hands!

As we floated down river, I cast to a spot Rob suggested and immediately hooked into a fish- I yelled "Fish!" My fishing partners put the brakes on the boat as I fought with a small monster- a monster I'm much more familiar with than those Michigan trout... I pulled out a very nice Michigan smallmouth bass on my go-to white twister tail.

Check out those colors

That fish was enough to halt our journey; the other two guys jumped out of the canoe and started fishing. Almost right away I connected with another fish, and a few casts later got him to commit. Thanks to Mark for manning the camera!

Big ol' rock bass from the Rogue River

A few minutes later Rob landed a smallie as well, but I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge how much bigger mine was. I've learned a lot from my fishing mentors, including how to give each other &$%# for their tiny fish.

Rob and an ok smallie (just kidding, it was great)

Pretty soon it was time to head out. We passed a lot more fishy looking spots that almost certainly held fish, but we were already more than an hour behind schedule. Somebody had underestimated the length of our journey. (I'm talking to you Rob!) Not that I'm complaining, I thought it was great. I could have fished that river all day.

When all was said and done, we had traveled more than 7 miles on the Rogue River, caught a bunch of fish, almost died about twenty times, one of us got a leech on his leg (hint: it wasn't me), and we created some real nice memories. They will stay with us for a long time, maybe even longer than the deep gouges on the canoe.

Paperclips, yarn, and shoelaces

I'm heading to Michigan this weekend, and plan on fishing either the Rogue River for trout or the Flat River for smallies and trout. I've had some good times on the Rogue- caught my first brown trout there last fall - and can't wait to get back in the water.

For some reason I'm not fishing right now, so I spent a little time and made some new spinners. Luke, one of my trio of fishing teachers, hipped me to a particular spinner that supposedly works great for smallies on the flat.

This one is great, he tells me

Instead of going out and buying a few, which would certainly make more sense and almost definitely get the results he's personally had on the river, I decided to make some of my own to throw in another variable. Maybe they'll work, maybe not. In my limited experience making lures, I'm consistently surprised the stuff fish will hit. They don't care if it's pretty, it just has to get their attention in whatever way they are focused that particular day. This one, which looks like a child made it, caught a 20" catfish.

Looks silly, catches fish. Fine with me

A few weeks ago I took some thick paper clips (you know, the big kind) and bent them into rough spinner shapes. Today it was a simple matter of adding the components and adding the dressed feathers. Here is what I came up with trying to emulate that rooster tail:

I made each one slightly different (more weight on the right one, willow blade instead of colorado on the left) so I can see how little changes affect how the lure runs. You might be saying "Well hey Chris, that's a willow blade on the rooster tail one, why did you use colorado blades instead?" The answer is I only had one silver willow blade. I've been really liking the action of blades attached directly to the shaft, i.e. with no clevis (the thing that holds the blade on Mepps-style spinners). They spin more and more easily, providing a lot of motion.

I made some others too:

and one with the specific intention of catching a pike with it:

A special thanks to Dan Sims of Sims Spinners for sending me some spinner components. The stuff I've been getting from Jann's Netcraft is ok, but the pieces Dan sent me are clearly high quality stuff. The finishes are very nice and glossy, and assembled the spinners have a great weight to them. Thanks Dan! Can't wait to catch some monsters on your spinners.

My last order from Jann's included some jigheads; although I love jigging (tube jigs, twister tails, grubs) I rarely throw the other kind... I think they're called swim jigs. The kind that has a skirt or hair or something on it. I got some skirts from Jann's, but so far those haven't landed me any fish. Maybe this one will. Yarn and shoelace skirt:

Yarn and shoelace

Hopefully I'll catch some monsters with these. Someday I'll finish that dub album, but for now I'm going fishing.

It was %$!#@ing cold

I've been hearing great reports of the fishing at Dusable Harbor, so of course that's where I found myself this morning around 6am. As soon as I got out of my car, I looked into the black sky and was almost knocked over by the wind. I had some second thoughts. Maybe it would be warmer by the water, I thought.

Does it look cold? It was!!

I walked up Michigan, over on Balbo, and was at the water in a few minutes. Huge waves crashed onto the pier, white streams of water flew everywhere. The lake was filled with giant waves, little white caps everywhere, and the wind was extremely intense.

It was $!#@%&ing cold as $%#&!

I almost turned around just then, but I stopped. I didn't wake up at 5 for nothing. I like little adventures almost as much as I like catching fish.

I walked north along the shore, trying to figure out how to deal with this curveball. I looked for a place that might give shelter to fish trying to escape the torrential wind. For a while I fished the area where Lake Shore Drive curves around and there are some docks. The water there was more calm, but no takers.

I kept walking north, working various lures along the lakefront as I went. I cast and retrieved with my cold, numb hands. It was supposed to be 74°F today, so I didn't bring any gloves. Lesson learned! Trying to improve my fishing skills, I've been changing lures more often. Every 10-20 minutes I tied on a different lure and tried a different technique. If any fish were biting I was determined to find them, catch them, and photograph them.

When I reached Dusable Harbor proper, I discovered a door to one of the long docks that must have been a fisherman's entrance. All I had to do was pull it open, and I walked onto the dock. A huge- no, humungous flock of seagulls was causing an insane racket over by some rocks closer to Navy Pier. I wondered if they discovered the baitfish and were having a nice morning buffet. I tried walking in that direction, but as soon as I moved beyond the big boat docked there in the harbor, the hurricane-like ice-cold wind changed my mind.

Dusable Harbor - that big boat to the right
was blocking some of the wind

No luck at the harbor, I continued walking, and found myself on the Chicago River. I fished some pilings with cranks, spinners, tubes, etc. but nobody was interested there either. I kept thinking there were certainly fish there, but I couldn't figure out how to get them. The wind was unrelenting, my hands were frozen to the core, and my three layers of flannel, sweatshirt, and windbreaker jacket weren't even enough.

The Chicago River
Doesn't look cold, but it really was

It occurred to me that I must really like fishing to be putting myself through this.

I realized I was only a 10 minute walk from Ogden Slip, where I'd had plenty of luck last year (thanks to Jim Nolan aka Bridgeport Bass for turning me on to the spot) so I headed there.

Somehow the wind was even more intense in there around all the buildings, and casting was next to impossible. I tried to work some pilings, but the wind had other ideas. I walked down the sidewalk and started fishing next to the "no fishing" sign in the corner. I had it on good authority that the city of Chicago actually built and owns the small cement dock I was on, so third party management companies cannot actually disallow fishing.

After a half hour there, working tubes, shallow cranks, deep cranks, spinners, and jigs, it was time to go. Thankfully the sun had risen enough I was slightly warm, just as I was leaving of course. I cut my losses, walked a few blocks to Michigan Avenue, hopped on a bus, and headed to work.

Not the most flattering shot....
I found a smaller, rounder bean hidden in some side streets

Kayak wading Salt Creek

I'm going to attempt a short post.

I realize I often write and write and write, probably to the point of rambling. I'm going to try a new thing here, and write a short, succinct post. This trip is a good candidate for that, since not much happened.

Even though there was a cold front coming through (I was in a kayak in Beck Lake when it happened, and let me tell you it was definitely cold) I had to get out and do some more exploring. My kayak was already strapped to my car, and my waders were already in the trunk, so I headed out. I stopped by Salt Creek a few days ago to check it out, but had a hard time getting into the water. I figured I'd take the kayak out, and if I found some fishy spots I could get out and wade.

While I unloaded the kayak, a forest preserve officer in a truck watched me. I wondered if I was doing something wrong and was about to get a ticket or something. Once I got the kayak to the water, he moved along. Got the yak in the creek, two rods in the rod holders, waders on, fishing vest stuffed with gear, and off I went.

Kayakin' the Salt

This was the first time I've kayaked with waders, and I love it. I got out of the yak about 15 times to fish promising spots, but didn't get even a hit. I'm sure the cold front doesn't help. I've heard of pike, musky, and even smallies in the creek, but I've only caught panfish and tiny largemouth bass in it so far. I threw some inline spinners (I love how they look in current), jigs and twisters, tubes, cranks, but nothing.

It was a nice paddle up the creek, and it was fun to float back, casting the whole way. A lot of the creek where I was had a very rocky bottom, which is very different from the bottom farther north. Where I usually fish it it's a mucky mud bottom. The water down here was also much clearer, about a foot of visibility. Although residential areas surround the creek, at times I felt like I was much farther away from civilization. Except for the jumbo jets flying overhead every five minutes on their way to O'hare, the busiest airport in the world, a few miles to the east.

I spent about two hours in the creek, and it was a very enjoyable experience. I saw plenty of baitfish, so I'm sure there are gamefish around. I found the baitfish by trying to read the water, to figure out where fish might be... And at least as far as baitfish are concerned, I found them! Now I just have to find whoever is eating the baitfish. I'd love to catch some nice bass wading in a stream 15 minutes from my house.... I'll definitely be back.

I hit the retention pond on the way home, and nada there too. Oh well, the season is just starting, and I'm getting tons of casting practice.

Trout on the Rogue

The Rogue River at Sunrise

We were heading to Michigan this weekend, and there was no way I wasn't going to be fishing in this incredible weather. After about a hundred texts, I had two partners, a location, and a quarry: trout. My friends Rob and Mark and I were going to fish the Rogue River for steelhead.

Woke up at 5am on Saturday, which of course was actually 4am for me due to the time zone change. If it means fishing such a great spot as the Rogue River, I don't mind getting up that early at all. Made a pot of coffee, put on some long underwear to go under my jeans under my waders, and for the first time this year busted out my new fishing/wading vest.

It's a nice lightweight one from L.L. bean, with tons of pockets and places to hide fishing gear. The problem is I'm not really sure how you're supposed to keep lures in the pockets... And in one pocket there is a piece of white fur or something with a safety pin on the back. What the hell is that for? Pretty sure it has something to do with holding flies for fly fishing, but I know almost nothing about that world of fishing...

I kneeled on the floor, my tacklebox open and my vest on me, trying to figure out how to move lures to my vest. Do I put them loose in the pockets? Do I stick them to the furry thing? Do I have to use little boxes, and put those in my pockets?

Well I only had one little box, so I filled it with a bunch if homemade inline spinners and shoved it into a pocket. I still had tons more lures I wanted to take, so I just shoved those in pockets too- hooks and all! Pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to do, as I immediately began hooking my fingers anytime I went into the pockets... But hey you do what you gotta do for fishing.

After a few minutes by vest was about 10 pounds heavier, filled with anything and everything that might possibly catch me a fish on the Rogue River. This was the very same river I waded back in November searching for salmon. I didn't find any salmon, but I did land my first brown trout. It was a tiny fish, but was one of the highlights of my fishing year. I knew there would be a variety of trout in the river, and of course spring-run steelhead salmon. Although it would have been amazing to hook into one of those, I knew I'd be ecstatic catching even a tiny trout of any species.

I put on my vest, a few hooks poking through my pockets, and I made a last ditch google search for "spring steelhead lures" as I downed my coffee. The Internet told me most people fly fish for steelhead; if not, most people used spawn (fish eggs) under a bobber. I didnt have any spawn. The third option seemed to be small inline spinners. Well I was in luck, because id been making spinners all winter and had a ton of them, many dangerously poking through my vest.

Around 5:45am Mark arrived, not awake yet either, and we quickly loaded my mini with gear and headed out. Let me tell you, nothing says fishing more than two guys and a ton of fishing gear in a green mini cooper.

By the time we got to the river, it was about 7am; I'd consumed the better part of a pot of coffee, and was itchin' to go fishin'. Somehow, all three of us had miscalculated (read: misread) when sunrise was. When Rob showed up a few minutes later, it was still absolutely and completely dark outside, save the waning gibbous moon poking through the trees. Sunrise was at 7:50, not 7:05!

Unsphased, we hopped into our waders and trekked into the dark.

Many who know me know about the strange neorological condition I experience called synesthesia- basically all my senses are connected. When I hear music I also literally see it, like an abstract "fantasia" or something. The same thing with any sound, like rushing water. As we walked along the river in the dark, the pulsing white paintings of the water rushing illuminated the darkness to me, a strange juxtaposition with the almost complex darkness.

This is kind of what our trek looked like
(we had fishing rods instead of guns)

As I followed Mark and Rob through the foliage, it reminded me of a mission in Call of Duty where you're a sniper sneaking into an enemy base. The outdoors is still pretty new to me, and there are many experiences I've only had in video games- like a bunch of guys, loaded down with gear, hiking through the forest on a mission. It was great to do this in real life, even though I was armed with a fishing rod, not a sniper rifle. Hopefully it would be just as deadly to the fish!

We passed many fisherman, apparently waiting for sunrise to enter the water. After a few minutes, we reached our destination and entered the water- we didn't wait for sunrise, it was fishing time! Rob and Mark easily waded through the water, but it took me a few minutes to regain my "river legs." i momentarily forgot how to wade, and went very slow to avoid getting all my gear prematurely wet. Rob directed us to a promising looking spot, and we began fishing. rob gave me some tips regarding casting location and retrieval speed, which I promptly forgot- I was still trying not to fall of in the quickly moving water!

We fished as the sun came up, and we were able to see our surroundings slowly lit up by the sun. As it shone through the trees, rays of fog lit up like laser beam security systems in art museums in movies (you know what I mean). The scene could not have been more beautiful. It was hard to focus on fishing when my surroundings were so beautiful... But not that hard.

I threw inline spinners, little white marabou jigs, and some plastic spawn imitation stuff that Mark gave me, which was apparently at least 10 a years old. Rob got a hit early on, but was unable to hook the beast. After a while we saw some steelhead jump out of the water, confirming we were in the right place!

Fishing buddies
Rob on the left in a nice fly-fisherman pose
Mark on the right not fishing for some reason...

Although there were definitely fish there, we couldn't get them to take our lures. After a while we decided to move downstream, working our way back to our cars. The scene was idyllic, but nobody was catching fish- and there were tons and tons of fishermen (and fisher-ladies) all along the river. A quick hike around a seemingly abandoned paper mill and a short drive upstream, and we arrived at our new spot just downstream of the Rockford dam.

Walking along the bridge, we looked down and saw at least three big fish (steelhead?) hanging out in the river. They seemed to be taunting the 20-or-so anglers standing in the river in the short stretch around the bridge. The water was so clear (I'm not used to that in my normal Illinois spots!) I wondered if the anglers could see the fish staring back at them.

We hiked through a gauntlet of thorny brush and finally made our way to spot near the steelhead. Rob stayed on the bridge, helping us find the fish. Mark I both proceeded to hook everything around us, except of course fish. The banks were lined with thick foliage; I spent about 10 minutes untangling my line from a single jerk-of-a-bush. The anglers in the river watched in amusement (or apathy, it was hard to tell).

I decided to move farther upstream, to avoid both the bushes and other angler's lines. I saw a guy catch a "nice" brown (I thought it looked humongous) which only fueled my fishing lust.

I fished for a while, and although I didn't get a single tap on anything I threw, every 10 seconds or so I saw a little skinny fish (baby trout?) jump out of the water just feet in front of me. The fact that I was standing in 3 feet of water and these jumps were almost at eye-level made it even more exciting. (remember, I'm super short)

A homemade spinner

Mark caught a fish! I quickly hopped over to see him unhooking a super nice brown, must have been at least 18". I marveled at the beautiful fish, and speedily ran back to my spot. He caught on a tiny silver mepps, retrieved very quickly. I pawed through my hook-lined-pockets, causing many small holes in my hands, until I found the smallest spinner I had. I lost a few upstream, so I only had one small spinner. This was the first one I'd made with a floating fluorescent body, originally with hopes of catching fox river walleye. Let's see if it could entice trout...

I cast it out far as I could upstream, and reeled in as fast as I could. Immediately I had a bump that was unmistakably a fish!! Fish!!

Forgetting Rob's earlier advice, I'd mostly been retrieving kind of slow, thinking I would be too fast for the fish. Now that I was burning the lure through the water, the fish were interested! I saw the flashes of 3+ fish following my spinner as it came toward me in the clear water.

Second cast, a hit, and then it felt like I was pulling my spinner over corrugated cardboard... As it came closer I saw a fish attached to my lure. FISH ON! It took every fiber in my body to avoid jumping up and giggling at the 8" fish I'd caught. Had I been alone, the river would have echoed with the high pitched squeals of a five year old!

I reached for the fish, excited for a photo, and it jumped off circle hook and slipped back into the water. That's ok, I thought, I'll just tell everyone it was a 19 incher. For the 3 seconds I saw it out of the water, I knew it was a trout, but I didn't know which one. Not a steelhead, probably a baby brown.

Next cast, another bump, and another trout! Same deal, as soon as it approached my hand it acrobatically jumped off the hook and back into the water.

A few casts later, same thing... Well at least I was figuring out a pattern for these fish! My homemade spinner, 2 feet below the surface, retrieved quicky.

And then, finally, I managed to get one in my hand long enough got a snapshot! Of course it was the smallest one I'd caught, and as no sooner than I'd captured it in my photo library, with a quick wiggle it was back in the water. I later google image searched, and confirmed it was a brown.

I know it looks like I'm strangling it, but I was holding it
pretty lightly.. you can see the tail starting to move- it jumped
right after this picture was taken!

Soon after that we had to go, due to our wives expecting us back... But all in all an amazing morning fishing! Although I still hadn't hooked into a beast of a steelhead, or any beast for that matter, the experience was awesome... And I did in fact catch four trout on a homemade lure, wading the beautiful Rogue River, with some great fishing buddies.