Illinois River, Starved Rock (all postings)

did anyone hear out yesterday in marsalles ares ? I was wanting to head out there today just don't know where to hit for walleye or the best tactic for them , can someone help please

all main chanels of the river are open. boat ramps at utica, peru, & spring valley are good for launching. Planning to hit it this weekend, walleye & sauger should be hitting good.

Sorry not a report---- I am looking for any updates on the river conditions or if anyone has been out just yet?

I drove past the Spring Valley Landing yesterday and it was froze up. The Peru Landing is the same.

My first post here and my first trip to the Illinois River. Thanks to everyone else for their informative posts. They helped make my decision to try the Illinois - good decision!!!! Figured I would return the favor with this post.

Launched out of Starved Rock about 10:00am. Per the local bait shop (at the corner of of Rt 178 and Rt 6) recommendation, we headed West to the Vermillion River and Rt 39 overpass. Fished the North shore of the Illinois from the Vermillion river to the Rt 39 overpass. Caught a few whiteys (mostly small), one carp, and one walleye using blade baits and jig/twister tails. In the afternoon, went up the Vermillion river to the first overpass. Water depth seemed low at the overpass - we bumped the bottom. From there we drifted (multiple times) back downstream to the Illinois working both sides of the river. Caught about 30+ nice whiteys, one 15" Walleye and one 14" LM Bass using 3/16 to 1/4 oz non painted lead head jig and 2 or 3" twister tails - purple color seemed to work best, but yellow, blue-gray sparkle, and orange/red worked too. Just cast out perpendicular or slightly upstream, reel in slowly and let the current do the work. The fish hit pretty hard in the current. Awesome fight on light spinning tackle. At about 5:00pm we fished right at the corner (upstream side) of the Illinois/Vermillion river intersection. Actually anchored the boat right against the shore there. Ten casts, ten nice 1+ pound whiteys. Not much current here, so bites were light, just the slight tap of the whitey sucking in the bait, then set the hook!! Fished till dark. Pulled the boat out in the dark about 6pm. We were the last ones out of the lot.

cubs suds&scales I have found if you put whites on ice as soon as you catch them, and clean them as soon as possible, it helps the quality of the meat.

Thanks heard there good smoked too. Well live and learn.Next time just going to toss them back. man they were fun to catch. Caught a few on the ultralite with 2lb test what a blast. Well better get back to reports.

The best whitebass I've ever had were pickeled, like pickeled herring. Thats what all the locals in the wolf river system do with whites, it was great. Fillet um up and pickel em. Don't forget to skin em!

Hatt , I just updated my post below. Was my first time there as well. I think we were at the 4th bridge down. Good luck out there.

Hey,

Looks like the Illinois river has just as good whitebass runs as the "world famous" Wolf river.

Any general vicinty information would be greatly appreciated. I have never fished the Illinois and even were to put in would be a help.

tight lines

Took a trip to starved rock saturday. Caught a whitebass on almost every cast. We had three guys and we had 12 doubles and a triple. Caught well over a hundred. All fish caught on blade baits by one of the bridges. Kept 45. We cooked up 20 of them and the did not taste to well. Cut the mudline out and fried them up in shorelunch. Do you guys soak them in milk or saltwater first? They were pretty nasty. Well sure was fun out there. Tight lines CSS

caught two nice cats one was 23 in and the other was 22 inchs north of 39 by the boat dock on shrimps and some stripes. hope to get back there some for some nice walleyes.any special baits beside shiners, where can i get redtail chubs????????

Didn't try but look at the IWT tournament from last weekend...looks like they caught like 240 or so......saw guys jigging for them but didn't see any caught.....can't beat the whitebass fight and numbers....MY ARM HURTS!!!!

Me and a buddy caught well over 100 whitebass today from the Rock down to Spring valley. Most on blades but some on roostertails and even some other junk we threw at em! John caught the biggest whitey at 2.6 pounds....what a fight!!!

Whole area is flooded from above Morris to below Peoria.

Wait a few weeks for the water to recede!