Corn slows annual deer hunt trip

It was time to head back to the Rend Lake area for a week of deer hunting and fishing. It has come to be an annual thing for me to head south for early fall outdoors activities.

Actually, it's more of a seasonal thing for me. I love it down there as there is so much to do. It's close enough for a day or two or even a week.

As I drove down Interstate 57, I saw that a lot of the corn was still up. Some soybean fields were starting to get harvested. It would not be long before the corn would be down. For the good of hunting, I was hoping the corn would be down.

With it still up, deer hunting was a bit slow for me. I did see a lot of does and bucks, and many of the bucks were just monsters. If I was able to harvest one of these huge white-tailed deer, there is no doubt that it would be hanging on the wall. The racks that I saw were impressive.

The bucks came out of the corn every once and a while, but never near where I was in a stand. That's OK though. I will be back and the corn will be down. My day will come.

Actually, it did while I was staying at the Rend Lake Resort (www.RendLakeResort.com). One evening while enjoying an all-you-can-eat prime rib and pasta buffet dinner at the Window's Restaurant at the resort, I heard a familiar voice ring out.

"Hey Don. How we doing, buddy?"

It was long-time friend Todd Gessner. You've read about him many times here in my articles.

"Don, we have to get out even it's for a little while as the crappies are biting," Gessner said.

Actually, that's nothing unusual because Rend Lake is a great lake for crappie fishing. Why people go to other lakes farther away and in other states I'll never understand.

"We're catching crappie in 2 feet and down to 20. They're all over and they're all big."

Gessner, who has been fishing southern Illinois for more than 25 years (ToddGessnerOutdoors.com), had a lot of guide trips that week and every one brought in limits for his clients. That day Gessner caught a 2-pounder and many not that far from that size.

It happens on occasion when the water temperature drops that the crappies just go on a major feed. The Rend Lake area just had a lot of rain and it muddied up the lake some, but it didn't matter. The fish felt the need to feed as the water temperatures hovered in the mid-50s. Gessner expects it to stay like this for several weeks and maybe even into late November.

Minnows on TruTurn hooks, or small, plastic baits like Panfish Assassins were all that was needed. They both worked equally as well, but I did notice that more fish came on the live bait when things slowed down.

The minnows were fished below a slip bobber, and the plastics were straight-lined. We started fishing in 2 feet of water by downed branches and tree trunks. The fish related to the structure and held on it day after day. When things got slow we moved out to the stake beds (fish cribs, as we say up north) that were in about 10 feet of water. Again, the fish related to the structure.

For a change of pace and a different approach, we went deep. Gessner has some old logs and creek-bed structure that's in 20 feet of water. We fished that, too, and the crappies were there.

To catch 8- to 10-inch crappies is fun, and Gessner will clean them up for a package to take home. But what was nice about this fishing from 2- to 20-feet deep, we got an assortment of fish, and many were in the 12-inch range. This was fishing that was well worth it.

On my drive back home I never turned on the radio. I made one stop on I-57 and made the trip in four hours and 15 minutes and just over a half tank of gas in my SUV. Thinking about the time I spent on the water, the fish that were caught, the ones missed, and even one 4 1/2-pound channel cat that I caught using a 10-foot long crappie rod that had 4-pound test line made the drive back pass so quickly. When I got home just minutes after noon I could not help but think that great fishing is not that far away.

IN THE OUTDOOR NEWS

The new America's Outdoor Show, which was commonly known as the Rosemont Show, was purchased by new owners. Last week it was reported that the show will be only four days. The owners have now decided that to compensate for the possibility of any snow problems, the show will remain five days long. Show dates are Jan. 27 through Jan. 31.

The Tinley Park Fishing and Outdoors show has announced that Marc Miller, the director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, will be one of the Tinley Park Fishing and Outdoors Show seminar speakers for the 2010 Show. Miller will talk about fishing Illinois state parks. This seminar will be on Feb. 13 at 1 p.m.

"We are so proud to say that this will be the most prestigious speaker we have ever had at the Tinley Park Fishing and Outdoor Show," show manager Rich Komar said. "To have director Miller join us is proof that he is a great person and outdoorsman who is willing to help us in our cause to support the student athletes here at the Tinley Park High School."

Thanks for reading my articles.

If you have any questions, reports, or comments, please feel free to e-mail them to me at iloutdoors@comcast.net, or write to me at Illinois Outdoors, P.O. Box 713, New Lenox, IL 60451. And don't forget to visit my Web sites at www.illinoisoutdoors.com and www.fishinglineradio.com.