Though a destination fishing trip can be thrilling, Andrew Ragas reminds us that there can be plenty of excitement in fishing locally. 

Anyone can book a flight to a major fishing destination, lodge at an all-inclusive resort, or hire a guide to put them on fish. We all tend to be more interested in showcasing these types of trips and experiences rather than share information about local adventures that are more practical and convenient. In the process, we often forget that great fishing is sometimes located not far away.

Wherever in the Midwest you live, big fish live nearby. I’ve found a lot of local opportunity close by to where I live in Lake County, Illinois.

Whether or not you live near known fisheries, you might be surprised by what some nearby waters contain. Not every water can contain unicorns and giants, but you’ll be surprised by what lurks in your local subdivision ponds, pits and drainages, and even in the little ditches along the highway.

Monster fish sometimes come from places you frequently drive past. You’ll never know of their existence or the potential of these local fisheries until you try.

Nowadays, I don’t get to fish my local northern Illinois waters as frequently or as hard as I used to. In between my Northwoods commutes and other travels, I still find that local fishing opportunities can be as productive and worthwhile as a fishing vacation several hundred miles away. No flights, hotels or long drives are needed.

If you’re unable to travel far due to time or financial limitations, you can always fish locally. Catch bass, pike, muskies, walleyes and other species without ever having to travel. Here’s what I catch locally.

Largemouth bass

No other sport fish is found in abundance and availability like the largemouth bass. Small lakes and ponds dotting the landscapes throughout southern Wisconsin, northern and central Illinois, and on the outskirts of the Chicagoland area are chock-full of them. Most up-and-coming bass anglers from this region cut their teeth at them.

My home office in Lake Zurich, Ill., overlooks a 3-acre private pond in the backyard. Shortly after buying our home in 2020, the pond quickly revealed herself, giving up 6- and 7-pound largemouths within a month after move-in. Incredibly healthy fish! All our neighbors remain in disbelief. Some of them had lived here several years before us, never knowing what kinds of big fish resided there.

I’ve caught trophy largemouths in Wisconsin and Florida, and the ones residing in local ponds nearby in northern Illinois rival those specimens. Nowadays, I think twice about traveling far if it’s for largemouths.

Early spring, from ice-out through June, is my absolute favorite time.

Most of these fish are caught with lipless crankbaits early in the year. In summer, I turn to swim jigs, jig & creatures, topwaters and surface frogs. Although the average pond doesn’t see very many anglers per week, a single angler can educate and condition several fish quickly if not selective of peak fishing times. Don’t overdo it. Find a rotation of ponds that you can visit to best avoid pressuring.

The best ponds offer submergent and emergent vegetation, moderate visibility, undeveloped shorelines, depths of 8 to 10 feet or more which is necessary to prevent summer- and winterkills, and a high forage base and corresponding adult population of large bluegills.

Just finding the good ones with healthy largemouth populations, and access to them by landowner permission and lack of signage, are the biggest challenges I face. Whether it’s a farm pond, subdivision pond, or ditch next to the shopping center, be aware of property zoning and boundaries. Many waters are managed and maintained by homeowner associations, so you could run into an HOA Karen or two. Trespassing or feuding with grumpy neighbors can be the consequences. To get by, I rely on the ReGrid and LandGlide apps. 

Smallmouth bass

During my moneyless and boatless days of youth, rivers and streams were my only realistic and practical options for high-quality smallmouth fishing. Many of them were local, easy and moderate to access, untapped for the most part, and the gear requirements to effectively fish them didn’t cost much.

The network of rivers and streams extending from the northern half of Illinois into Wisconsin continues to be underutilized and underfished for smallmouths.

Sure, nearby Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes is far more appealing and exciting, but it comes with too much danger, hassle and can turn into expensive trips. On my own time and dime, I find much greater reward in catching and releasing local 18-inch river trophies from the river systems of northern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin.

The typical adult river specimen runs 12 to 16 inches. Some pools can rear better size structures and much larger fish. We’ve caught fish pushing 20 inches from these systems. Few serious bass anglers will ever realize the potential of these fisheries and the good quality smallmouths they can hold.

Whether your objective is fishing by foot (wading and bank fishing), or fishing by small watercraft if navigable (kayak, canoe or jon boat), there is no shortage of accessibility or fishing style. Each form of fishing can be done successfully and rather inexpensively, year-round.

Several baits excel in catching stream smallmouths. I carry a few baits that resemble their natural prey such as crayfish and minnow species that are natural to the stream: madtoms, sculpin, darters, chubs, shiners and suckers. Bring a combination of baits you can fish along bottom, and a selection you can fish above surface and near surface. All it takes is a couple of small Plano stowaways stuffed in a small fanny pack buckled around your waist, chest pack, backpack or a satchel around your shoulders.

The best river locations tend to be sites you’ve likely driven over hundreds or thousands of times or passed by along roadsides. Unless your earliest angling memories involve wading or shore fishing them from public access sites, parks and dams, you might not have ever considered these little gems to be worthy of your time.

Peak seasons for me are always in spring (April and May), and early fall (September and October).

I give a lot of thanks and praise to organizations like The Conservation Foundation and Illinois Smallmouth Alliance for helping take care of our rivers and their fisheries. If it weren’t for their projects and efforts, we wouldn’t have as many smallmouths swimming locally.

Walleyes

Countless destination waters have well-known reputations for producing big walleyes. Still, a good majority of the biggest fish ever documented from my region have come from stocked lakes loaded with shad (Busse, Tampier, Heidecke, Wolf, Fox Chain), strip mine lakes, and river systems containing both shad and fishable populations of migrant fishes.

Wading partners and I have caught the biggest walleyes of our lives from northern Illinois river systems.

These last two decades, walleyes have been my favorite local species to pursue. They are mysteriously fun. Due to low population density, finding them with any regularity and success is far more challenging than any other local species. The reason you’re not hearing much about them isn’t because they don’t exist or people don’t post about them, but because nobody is fishing the small fishable populations we do have.

Walleyes in our lakes and reservoirs do not spawn successfully, so the IDNR and region’s FPDs continue to stock fingerling walleyes on an annual basis. These efforts just barely sustain their populations. On rivers, however, fish do go through the spawning motions even though dams, heavy siltation and turbidity limits egg survival. However, the few stocked fish that survive into adulthood have a realistic shot of achieving lunker status.

Eight- to 10-pounders are realistic around here from lakes; 6- to 8-pounders are about top-end on rivers. And 15-pounders, like the state record from the Pecatonica River in northwest Illinois, can happen as well.

For the largest local walleyes, I rely on river fisheries. I feel these fisheries peaked 10 to 15 years ago, but they’re still worthy of our time.

The Illinois, Rock, Fox, Kankakee and Des Plaines systems give anglers the best shot at a trophy. Since my high school days, I’ve spent an insane amount of time patterning and targeting walleyes from some of these local flows. Peak seasons revolve around spawning and feeding migrations coinciding with optimal current flow and water temperatures.

My big-fish windows repeat themselves each year, from late February through April, and October through November. The spring and fall migrations create higher concentrations of schooling walleyes.

In spring, fish migrate upstream to dams and tributaries where they will spawn extremely shallow on gravel bars with current, under darkness. During daytime, they recover and feed in eddies and deeper pools with rock and wood cover. In fall, fish can migrate upstream into tailraces or downstream to deeper holes where all fishing is related to holes and current breaks.

There’s no need to wade through the entire river. Hole hop near-shore instead. You will locate everything to fish during the daytime. Evening and nighttime fishing has always fared best. Nighttime fishing has safety risks and a high level of danger involved, but to really tap into trophies with consistency, odds greatly favor night.

The few anglers you might see fishing them work jig and plastics, and live bait rigs. Spring and fall, all my monster walleyes are caught casting with swimbaits, crankbaits and 4- to 6-inch minnow baits.

It’ll be a signature, head-shaking strike.

Andrew Ragas will continue with Part 2 of this feature—catching big northern pike and muskies from your local waters—in the May 29 MWO Insider weekly eNewsletter. Subscribe by going to MidWestOutdoors.com/Insider, and remember, it’s FREE!