The Northern Winter Question: To Fish, or Not To Fish?

by

Chris Matthews

Winter in the more northern territories of the US will mean for many that it’s time to put the rods away and essentially hibernate until you can feel the warmth of the sun again in early spring. For some hardy folks, this is not an option, the itch must be scratched!!

Due to the often painful fact that the temperatures rarely get above 32F around me here in central Illinois, there’s no open water to fish without drilling a hole through the ice but that just means that I have to travel a little to catch carp in open water.

Ya just need that incessant urge to fish and plenty of warm clothing to get out and do the business… Luckily, I have plenty of both!

I am also lucky in the fact that I have some shipping canals located within an hour or two drive north that do not freeze because of the frequent barge traffic on them.

The Des Plaines River shipping canal is a Winter angler’s dream in these neck of the woods due to this floating traffic! Meaning I don’t have to drill a hole through the ice to actually fish like many others have to do.

These canals were dug out a hundred years or so ago to transport goods to and from Chicago down to the Illinois river and then on to the Mississippi river to their final destinations.

The canals and rivers are home to carp and quite a lot of them! Granted, they’re not always the biggest but you will occasionally stumble across a 20 and the odd mirror should your luck really be in that day.

Needless to say, it’s more than enough to scratch the itch and hopefully, get a bend or two in the rod during the long Winter months and these fish really put up a fight in a strong moving current and deep water.

The canals themselves don’t really offer a ton of features outside of bridge structure and those bridge supports are usually the safest bet when trying to locate any fish. For the most part the water basins around the bridge supports are around 15-20ft deep. Those supports have been dug out and faced with 4-5ft concrete walls on the sides which can make it difficult netting fish if you don’t have the right equipment. A long net handle capable of lifting fish up these walls is right at the top of the “must have kit” list so I can safely transport the fish from the water to the mat and then back to their home after a quick photo... I’ve also found that using my 9ft rods has made netting fishing easier than your typical 12’ as a lot of the time you’re netting fish solo.

Fishing in these conditions as you would expect can be hit or miss, the fact the water is always moving means the fish are burning more energy and need to feed in order to replenish what they have lost.

If you can get the timing right even in the cold weather conditions you can land double figure digits of fish which is equal to a good day even in the warmer months we all love so much.

I’ve found over the years that keeping my setup as simple as possible produces the best results. This means scaling down to a size 6 wide gaped hair rig and simply fishing sweetcorn or a Tigernut on the hair with a piece of buoyant plastic maize to balance out weight of the baited hook.

A few scoops of sweetcorn here and there drifting down through the flow of the river to the area my baited rigs are sat waiting is the most bait that ever goes out in these colder months… this baiting technique has proven most effective time and time again when the carp aren’t majorly active due to the cold.

Local tournament organizer, Frank Rink is an angler that I couldn’t write this blog without mentioning. Frank organizes a Winter series of tournaments held in downtown Joliet that brings on average, around 7 or 8 of us hardy types together to catch-up face to face with each other’s news during fun fishing events. I suppose if we’re totally honest, most of us make the trek just to get out of the house and escape the dreaded Winter cabin fever. Any fish captures are definitely the icing on the cake and worthy of a post or two…

F.Y.I. Frank’s events can be found at Illinois Carp Fishing Tournament News on Facebook and they typically run once or twice a month all the way through March with a few being memorials for some anglers that preceded us.

Anyone and everyone are always welcome to fish and brave the colder months out on the bank with friends and like minded folks when many others don’t want to… The results are there to be had.

You can follow along on my fishing captures on Instagram via @cmatty_carp_fishing

Thanks for reading and stay warm!

Chris