Fresh McHenry County Fishing Reports

Ran 5 trips this weekend. Some trips excelled, while others struggled to catch walleye. Sheep head, stripers and blue gill are plentiful. The walleye that were caught were 20 - 29 inches long. The walleye are mostly biting on blade baits with occasional success with a jig and crawler.

This was the last time we caught significant silver fish towards the end of August. A grand slam or 5 different species of fish. Many Captains and people in general will go a long time or never get 5 species in a 6 hr trip! We were pumped to say the least, and the Brown and King were the last two fish after the sun came out! That day and since its mostly been a Lake Trout Bite. Going slower and trolling flashers flies and misc. Lake Trout rigs. On this day my crew wanted silvers and I stubbornly trolled faster than normal for a Lake Trout bite and it worked, we got our silver fish. Anyway its mid Sept now and I've reports of Kings and Rainbows even a few coho being caught off of the piers near Montrose Harbor. So the 4 yr olds are likely on their way in if not already there! Also now even the Lake Trout bite has gotten difficult for some. My business has wound down and unless I get a last minute deal, I'm likely pretty close to being done fishing for the year. Thank you to all of the people that booked trips with me or tried. Sept usually has some rough weather and we did have to cancel a few trips late. If you still want to go give me a try. I might be able to squeeze you in before we put her up! (first week in Oct) Thanks for the Great Year Fishing hope its even close to this good next year. Capt JB

The silvers are transitioning (4 yr olds prepping to spawn), moving. Therefore it became difficult to catch many silver fish offshore in one trip. Most Captains out of Chicago are targeting Lake Trout now, and we are lucky to get a few silvers, if we do its usually 3 yr old or less salmon and misc browns / steelhead. This started the last week in August, I'm writing this review on 9-4-24. The main bite right now is Lake Trout (2 per person max). The waters on top are warm so they will die once taken aboard the boat. At this point if you catch a couple salmon or other silver fish (rainbows, browns) consider yourself lucky (this is out of Chicago). Its best to head in after catching your lake trout (LT) limit so that you don't kill any (LT) by releasing them. Lake trout are pretty deep right now 80 to 130 FOW plus. Biting on silver flashers and spin and glos and/ fly's. There are a few silver fish around but not many. Trolling slow works great for trout 1.9 to 2.2 but if you keep it a little faster you might luck into some salmon. The photo added here was a great catch last weekend of August, a Grand Slam, 5 species... King / Coho salmon, Brown, Lake and Rainbow Trout. Good luck out there. Salmon may start to show up around the harbor mouths soon. I'm planning to fish them with loud ugly looking lures to entice a bite. Shore fisherman have begun to catch a king here or there. Once the water cools off near shore the steelhead and browns will likely follow the kings in close. You can't catch em if you don't try, so get outdoors and Capt JB

Off shore salmon and trout fishing off the playing hooky.

Lots of big lake trout moving in we still have some dates

It was the trip before school started , all 13 year old boys got it done ?, great late morni g trip