Fishing with daughter always hooks smiles

My daughter Lisa told me that she had about nine days off in October. It's something that doesn't happen often.

Lisa works at the Midwest Animal Hospital in Mokena. She also does dog training there and competes with her German shorthaired pointers. Her youngest dog, Wager, is on its way to becoming an established champion in obedience, agility and confirmation, and is now working hard on hunt tests.

Needless to say she puts in a lot of hours and we don't get to spend too much time together.

During the last week of October she was to attend an out-of-town competition, but the event was cancelled. I told her that we could probably get out on the water a bit more often then, but, as you may remember, rain and wind made for some pretty miserable weather. We did have a good day, though, on the last Tuesday of the month.

I looked at the Weather Channel online. Things were looking good. Air temperatures would be in the mid-50s. Winds would be at about 4 mph. Chance of rain was only 10 percent. Knowing that the water temperatures at Lake Calumet were in the low 50s, it all added up to a perfect day on the water and the possibility of some dynamite crappie fishing.

We loaded up the boat and headed east from Lincoln-Way for the city. Exiting Interstate 57 at 159th Street, we shot over real quick to Angler's Outlet to pick up a few dozen minnows, and then jumped back on I-57 to head over to the lake.

The boat was launched at Sunset Bay Marina, 13601 S. Calhoun Ave. in Chicago. With all the recent rain, the river was quite muddy, with a lot of floating debris. Launching there was a wise choice as it's right across from the O'Brian Locks, where we navigated through to get to Lake Calumet.

Lisa and I had light-action rods and reels that were spooled with the Berkley TransOptic 4-pound test line. At the end of the line was a No. 6 TruTurn blood red panfish hook and a split shot about 10 inches up from it.

I tied up the boat to the first I-beam tripod that barges use to anchor. We hooked up a minnow and let it drop to the bottom. Once the line stopped peeling out, we gave the reel two cranks to bring up the bait a little off the bottom. It was only a couple of minutes and I had my first 14-inch, 1-pound 5-ounce crappie.

This was going to be a good day.

Moments later, Lisa had a nice fish on. It was an 11-inch yellow perch. Shortly after that she got another; this time a 12-incher.

This looked like it was going to turn out to be a pretty nice day. But it did one better than that. It turned out to be a fantastic day.

I had a great time spending some time on the water with my daughter. The time passed so quickly as we talked about so many things. This was something that we often are not able to do.

Our catch for the day included such numbers of fish that we lost count. We caught crappies, yellow perch, white perch, largemouth bass and one brilliantly colored pumpkinseed. Crappies were all big.

I knew that this would be a good day for crappie fishing because the conditions were just right. We got quite a few, and the second-most fish caught were the yellow perch. For me it was quite a surprise to get them as I cannot remember ever catching perch in Lake Calumet. I'm sure other anglers have.

Lisa had a good time. It was good for her to get out on the water, drive the boat for awhile and enjoy the outdoors. Memories of taking her fishing when she was younger came back to me when she started noticing and pointing out some jumping fish, herons on the shores, and having that special excitement in her voice when she caught a fish.

It doesn't matter how old or how young your children are when it comes to fishing. Try to make some time to get them out with you. It won't hurt to get mom or dad out either. Think about it; when was the last time you fished with them? Maybe they took you out when you were young. Now is the time to return the favor.

Lake Calumet will be producing some nice crappies from now all the way up into December. Dress warmly, grab a bucket of minnows, and enjoy a day out there with the family. Being only about a half hour away from our Lincoln-Way area, you'll see that great fishing is not that far away.

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, www.illinoisoutdoors.com and www.fishinglineradio.com.