Due to our rather frustrating week fishing for Walleye up in Lake Vermilion in Minnesota I’ve set myself several goals to improve my Walleye catching skills before next year. At the top of that list is, you guessed it, to fish more for Walleye.
I came across this article detailing the top 10 lakes for catching Walleye in Illinois.
“Lake-dwelling walleyes in Illinois beyond the Fox Chain were once regarded as little more than a “bonus” species before the Jake Wolf Hatchery facility came on-line. We are now enjoying fish-production capabilities of the Illinois hatchery system that were only dreamed about 15 years ago, with walleyes and hybrid saugeyes thriving in lakes that either didn’t exist or only held bass and panfish when our fathers were fishin.’”
I think, due to convenience more than anything, I’ll start with Shabbona, though I’m excited to have a good excuse to take my motorcycle back down south and work the beautiful Lake Kinkaid. Sitting just outside of Carbondale and the Shawnee National Forest these are some of my favorite spots in Illinois to ride my 2002 V-Star Classic.
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As a follow up to this… We were trying to plan a Walleye fishing trip for this weekend (October 17th) so I called Jay Angel (http://www.shabbona-lake.com/page/guides-1). He was very helpful and very honest.
Apparently, Shabbona lake is not a good lake for Walleye, this time of year or ever, really, and has been that way for the past 4-5 years. Jay has said that he has been working to get it stocked well, but could not reccomend that as a good lake for much of anything right now.
He has been pulling Walleye out of the Illinois River and is willing to run a guide service on that. Give him a call if you need someone to help you.