Southern Illinois is awesome right now

I gotta tell you, southern Illinois is awesome right now. With this weather, you can catch or shoot just about anything you want. It’s going to be an absolutely phenomenal weekend for hunting and fishing.

First of all, the crappie are eating like sharks. They’re not very happy when you drop a jig in the water and they are killing it. We’re just completely butchering the crappie and they’ll be like that for another month. We’re catching lots of fish from 9-14 inches, lots of good keepers. And they’re shallow. Best of all it’s jigs, jigs, jigs. You don’t have to worry about keeping minnows alive at all. Fish laydowns and wood.

Bass are biting like sharks out there too. Everything in the lake is tearing things up. Even the catfish are going better than before. This weather is just great. Lake of Egypt bass are biting in the grass and crappie are shallow there too.

Plus the big bucks ought to be moving this weekend. I’m headed out there myself in just a few minutes. Somebody’s going to kill a big one this weekend, I’m telling you.

Speaking of big ones, here’s some my buddy Jimmy Lang and I caught this summer at a nice southern Illinois lake. Jimmy caught his on an 11-inch Net Bait and I caught mine on a Gale Warren spinnerbait. That’s one of the original spinnerbaits down here out of West Frankfort.

Ever catch two boats on fire?

Man, things aren’t going too good right now. I still don’t have an insurance settlement for that boat on mine that caught on fire this summer.

So now I’m borrowing boats right now and I even had another one catch on fire. What do they call it when you can just catch something on fire, Telekinesis? I don’t know. But I think this fire stuff is following me and trying to get me.

Yesterday I borrowed my bass fishing partner’s boat because I had two half-day guide trips. It’s a 1990 Ranger with a 175 Mercury. Well, I went to crank it and the guy next to me said, “I smell something burning.” I said, “Me too.”

All the sudden I had hot rubber melting on my leg. So I had to jump back and tear out all the wires so it didn’t burn worse.

Man. And you want a fishing report?

Well, the bass are eating at Rend Lake on square-billed crankbaits, Rat-L-Traps and spinnerbaits in shallow water wherever you find shad. Those shad are moving into the back of the coves.

Crappie are just now starting to bite good. They are hitting on jigs and minnows on shallow laydowns and brushpiles and stake beds. They’re still a little bit of work, but you can catch them.

And you know what? Yesterday we caught bluegill at Rend Lake. That’s unbelievable. Nice bluegill. Three-quarter pounders to half-pounders. We don’t see that very often.

Catfish are still tearing up the water as usual.

Overall it’s that magic time when all the fish move shallow and chase shad and put on the feed bag.

Now is the time to come fishing. I just need to get a new boat and quit with these fires.

Cast and blast was a blast

We had a cast and blast down here at Rend Lake and it was great.

We caught some crappie in the morning and then had a good dove hunt and a barbecue. It was good. The doves were better than the fish. There’s a lot flying around here in southern Illinois still. I just walked outside my Mom’s house and I could see at least 10 or 15 in the driveway. So for us down here it’s been an OK start to dove season.

I did talk to some people in central Illinois who had a really nice spot and didn’t see a single dove. We’re doing better than that.

We’ve still god birds and lots of food and we should be able to hunt it for another two weeks. I just had my farming buddy disc under some more ground and it looks real good. We didn’t shoot the last two days but this weekend we’re going out with a blaze of glory again.

But man, I shot awful on the opener. I killed eight doves out of two and a half boxes of shells. That’s terrible.

But the deal here is great. Call Todd Gessner (618) 513-0520. You fish in the morning and hunt in the evening and then have a barbecue in the field. It’s a blast.

Otherwise things are looking good. Crappie are starting to eat and the bass are still eating. We’ve got a bunch of big bucks. Two years ago we had a big outbreak of blue tongue and last year was OK, but it wasn’t what it should have been. Now our population is soaring and it’s going to be a great, great year. We’ve got a bunch of good film. We’re working on our Web site for the Boneyard Outfitters.com. It should be fired up soon.

Talk to you soon.

Lamenting the loss of Jason Thomas

It’s tough down here right now. Jason Thomas (pictured below) drowned in our tournament last night. (Click here to read the Southern Illinoisan story).

He was a rising star on the local bass trail. He was great with his kids. He had a good job at American Coal. Everything was going good for him and now this. It’s just a tragedy.

They were fishing in a pocket that me and my partner had just left. Jason fishes with Neil McCord from West Frankfort. There are tournaments every Wednesday night put on by Rend Lake Sporting Goods. There’s usually anywhere from 20-40 boats.

Anyway, they caught a fish and after a bit Neil said he was ready to go. He said, “Jason you ready to go?” And Jason said yes. So Neil sat down and got on his life jacket.

Then he asked him again and Jason said he was going to get the trolling motor. Then he asked him again and looked back and I guess Jason’s eyes rolled back in his head before he fell in the water.

Neil jumped in to try to save him and he had a hold of him. But I guess his life vest popped and brought him back up to the surface again. They say Neil was in the water for more than an hour trying to look for Jason before the (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) made him get out. Neil is just tore up by this.

It’s terrible. Jason was one of the best rising young bass fishermen around here. He’s only 35. He’s won tournaments, he’s good. He had two little kids and a son named Fisher.

They think maybe he was dead when he hit the water because he sank immediately. All he had on was a t-shirt, shorts and some Crocs. It’s awful.

Every time you looked at (Jason Thomas) he had this smile because you knew he was lying to you about where he was catching his fish. He was a great fisherman. This just sucks.

Bass biting, but still no boat

Well, I’m still boatless, but I’m on the water and borrowed a buddy’s boat. The bass and insurance company have a mass conspiracy going on, but they can’t keep me off the water.

And the bass are biting here at Rend Lake. You can’t get too shallow for these fish. They’re really biting well shallow on spinnerbaits and smaller soft plastics. Even crankbaits, smaller ones are working good.

But crappie here at Rend are very slow. You can catch a few shallow but the deep bite just hasn’t turned back on yet. They will not hardly hold on to anything.

At Lake of Egypt bass are decent on Carolina rigs and fishing shallow weedbeds early and late with frogs.

ON DUCKS: I haven’t seen many teal migrating yet, but we’ve got a bunch of resident ducks this year, which is surprising. We’ve got a lot more of them than we’re used to seeing. And I know the duck hatch in North and South Dakota was phenomenal. So we should have a good season.

And I’m personally glad about the way they set up (the South Zone) season. I know a lot of the clubs aren’t that happy, but I do my guiding in Arkansas. So just as a hunter I think it’s better to start the season earlier.

But I don’t get into that September hunting for waterfowl. I can’t eat ice cream in the winter and I can’t kill geese in September. I can’t do it. Besides, September and October are usually some of our best fishing months. Usually right after dove season the crappie start tearing it up.

We’ve got five acres of sunflowers that look great. It’s right by a big old pond with four or five dead trees near it. We’re going to mow it and disc in pretty soon. So we should have a real good shoot.

After that it will be time to catch crappie. Now I just hope I have a boat by then.