Thinking of making a run to Spring Valley, IL on the Illinois River Friday afternoon. Will water levels be suitable for fishing this weekend? How is the bite? Any insight would be greatly appreciated … I have never made this trip before.
Thanks
Cabelas is having the 1st MWC event there this weekend. It’s the 25th aniversary “Party” so might be a little busy.
Here’s link.
http://walleye.outdoorsfirst.com/articles/03.01.2011/3743/Cabelas.MWC.Plans.Party.on.the.Illinois.River.for.Spring.Valleys.th.Anniversary/
Gonzo here is another post that should help. I was thinking about going down there Saturday, but I’m not sure I want to fight the crowds.
http://www.idofishing.com/forum/showflat.php/Number/992791/fpart/1/iwt-spring-valley-results
From what I have been told by buddies that have been there in the past few days is. Fishing is on fire. You can get fish on just about anything you want to do. Lots of boats but also lots of fish. One report I saw was guys anchored belowe the damn in one spot for over 2 hours. 30 keepers pitching plastics
I think I’ve got my Dad talked into going over with me Friday afternoon. Hopefully we’ll get there with some time to fish Friday evening then most of the day Saturday before heading home. I’ll post a report when I get back. The weather doesn’t look the greatest and there will be lots of competition but what the heck.
It’s going to be a zoo Friday with about 123 boats launching out of Spring Valley for prefishing. Coming from Iowa, you might want to check the launch at Hennepin. Just head south on I-180 abot 15miles. 180 ends at Hennepin. Spring Valley is about 11 mile up stream. No need to go past Sprin Valley to catch fish 
Also, the female are just starting to spawn. If your going to keep fish, try to keep the males. Just my 2 cents Thanks
I would think 100 of the 123 boats will be around the starved rock area this weekend. You will be able to get out friday afternoon because they have to quit fishing at 2:00. Saturday,,,, I dont know what to tell you but I will say this,If you want to launch at starved rock you better get there early.If you launch downriver at hennipen it will be alot less crowded.
Well we made it over Friday afternoon and launched the boat from Starved Rock State Park around 4:30pm. Hit many good looking spots around the island and up towards the dam but we just couldn’t get anything going. Not many other boats in the area and the gal at the bait shop said that the bite had dropped off considerably with the cold front.
Saturday we started with a plan to troll stickbaits on 3-ways to see if we could locate some fish. The other part of our plan was to observe the tournament boats to see what was working and where. Well due to the number of boats in the area we quickly gave up on the trolling concept. After jigging several areas unsuccessfully we returned to an area that we had worked over pretty good on Friday night. We ended up fishing a 3 way with a jig on the dropper and a hook and minnow on the other line. Low and behold anround 10am it started to work. We ended up catching a good number of football shaped saugers around the 16″ mark. Wish I would have taken some pictures. The bite was a bit streaky but seemed to be picking up again around 1pm just as we had to be making our exit. Even though there were a ton of boats in the area it never felt too crowded … apparently plenty of areas to fish as the boats were spread out as far as the eye could see. And from what of read of the tournament reports everyone was catching fish. I will be going back.
She’s droppin’.
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