I want to finish up last week's story about the day I spent with Dave Kranz on Vulcan Lakes at Crystal Lake's Three Oaks Recreation Center a short time ago.
We started out moving up the east shoreline while we worked topwater baits. We saw no fish movement at all on the surface near the shore. We did see some bass breaking water chasing bait out deep but felt it would be fruitless to attempt to cast to open water.
I was throwing a Bagley Bang-O Lure while Dave tossed a Senko rigged wacky-style. Dave is a big believer in using the ultra-sharp Gamakatsu hooks on his plastic rigs. Although the east shore looked promising it seemed we had been deceived.
We turned along the south shore and I switched to casting out a drop shot rig. I got the first hit. I reeled in a decent fish and efficiently released it without even having to touch it while bringing it into the boat. Some people might say that I lost the fish before landing it but I prefer to think that my angling talents allowed me to perform a deft "quick release" without having to handle or harm the fish. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I think I stuck to it at least another three or four times that morning.
To be totally honest, I'll tell you how I lost one fish. I use stand-out dropshot hooks. They have two shanks that allow you to run the line through both of them while keeping the hook pointed out horizontally facing upward. I always attach the hook to the line in a way that I can slide the hook up and down the line easily to try fishing at different depths. There is a loop knot at the bottom of the rig and a weight attached to the loop knot. It has always been enough to keep the hook from slipping off of the line. It failed me when I was taking my biggest bass out of the water. After a nice battle, the bass just plain pulled the entire hook off the line, past the knot and breaking off the weight. I will never attach a dropshot hook to my line that way again.
Immediately, Dave scored the second fish, a bigger bass. This began a pattern of our catching two or three fish from the same spot. Rather than keep fishing a productive spot until we stopped catching fish, we kept moving. The frustrating part of this fishing trip was our dedication to providing a quality story for the paper's readership. It was very frustrating to find a spot that held fish but choosing to keep moving rather than stay put because we wanted to be able to relay what the entire lake was like. No need for thanks, folks.
Most of the shoreline at Vulcan Lakes is sprinkled with timber, emergent weeds, rocks and gravel. The lake has many good looking points and turns. We soon found that areas holding rocks and weeds that quickly dropped off to deeper water were the best fish-holding spots, especially when the wind was blowing into these spots.
Dave kept nailing the bass in shallow water while I was getting them on the drop shot in deeper water. The bass were not shy of the boat because I caught a couple almost vertically under the boat.
It was a strange day for wind. We started out with a gentle westerly breeze that quickly switched to a north wind and soon it began blowing from the west. The wind changes understandably turned the fish off and on for a while every time it shifted.
In all honesty, the fishing was better before 9:30 a.m. than it was after. We still caught fish, but they were spaced further apart. We tried topwater lures, drop shot rigs, wacky worms, dressed jigs and crankbaits. The wacky rigs and drop shots worked best. Plastics in the greens and the browns were consistently best.
All in all, we caught 18 fish. Two of the fish were small, less than 12 inches. The other 16 were quality fish, all legal in size, although the lake rules do not allow the keeping of any fish. Dave's biggest bass of the day was a healthy four-pounder while mine weighed more than three pounds.
At one point, Dave was reeling in a nice two-pound largemouth and three smallmouths followed it to the boat. Dave let the fish swim attached to his line at boatside while we watched the smallies try to pull Dave's lure from the largemouth's mouth. One smallie was a dink, but I swear the other two weighed four and five pounds. Definitely worth going back for.
While we fished, we talked to a number of boaters who said their luck had not been good. When we docked, the employees were shocked we had caught 18 because the other boaters coming in had caught few or none. That made us feel very satisfied with our abilities
One thing the Three Oaks people asked me to report was that although it is legal in Illinois to use fish as bait as long as they are caught on the same body of water they are used for as bait, that this is completely illegal at Vulcan Lakes.
An outing to Vulcan Lakes at Crystal Lake's Three Oaks Recreation Center is definitely worth the cost and the effort. I recommend that you give it a try. In addition to excellent fishing, where else can you find a Culver's, complete with burgers, ice cream treats and more right at the dock?
For more information, prices, operating hours and directions for Vulcan Lakes, visit www.crystallake.org and click on "Three Oaks" in the lower left corner.