08-21-2006, 12:34 AM
Had all intentions of going to my honey hole this afternoon for a little ultralite bass fishing, but when I got there there was a car parked there already...I noticed the car had an Illinois plate on it so I decided to do a little personal investigating. There was an middle-aged woman, a young kid and an older kid fishing and had a bucket there and they were keeping every single fish they hooked regardless of species or size - in the bucket I notice several undersized bass and got perturbed instantly.
I inquired if they lived around in the general vicinity of the area they were fishing..."why no, we're from Illinois" they responded. (Well, I kind of alread knew that, but they might have just moved to Indiana, but that wasn't the case). I asked if the 2 over 18 had a non-resident fishing license and the oldest one stated "we don't even have an Illinois license...we're just fishing in a ditch, you don't need a license for that!"
Well, we all know that's not the case...even fishing in a ditch if you're planning to transport the fish you've caught, you have to have a license...but they not only didn't have licenses, they were from out of state, they had illegal sized fish in a bucket and they were leaving trash all over the ground...when I asked if the empty water bottles all over the ground were theirs the response was "hey it's a lousy ditch, who cares about a little trash on the ground?" "I do!" was my response...and with that, I walked to the back of her vehicle and wrote down the license plate number and make of the car. "Hey why are you doing that?" she asked...and my curt reply was "I'm going to stay here until you pick up every single piece of trash you left on the ground, or I'm turning you in for littering and fishing without a license"...they picked up all their trash, and then some!
It was late, so I headed towards some promising locations that I had marked on my maps and found several new places to wet a line, where it's more than obvious that no one's tried yet - probably because they're well off the beaten path, or because the people who do fish there are more concientious about picking up their trash when they leave.
Anyway, I now have several "new" locations to go when the fishing gets tough.
Tried one old haunt that hasn't been all that well since the drought for a few minutes and managed to land a small bass on a weightless T-rigged Tiki worm with a 5/0 annodized green Eagle Claw Wide Gap Hook...while working some duckweed that blew up against a culvert. This ditch is now 3 feet above normal stage which is great, because that means that there's the possibility that more fish have worked their way in to the area I fish.
Nature Notes: I saw 26 deer this afternoon, a vulture sitting in a field devouring a fresh carcass, cardinal flowers everywhere, the bees are working the clover and thistle feverishly, several hummingbirds, butterflies were everywhere - hundreds of monarchs and a few I have yet to identify.
...all in all, another fine afternoon had by me, down by the Kankakee!
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I inquired if they lived around in the general vicinity of the area they were fishing..."why no, we're from Illinois" they responded. (Well, I kind of alread knew that, but they might have just moved to Indiana, but that wasn't the case). I asked if the 2 over 18 had a non-resident fishing license and the oldest one stated "we don't even have an Illinois license...we're just fishing in a ditch, you don't need a license for that!"
Well, we all know that's not the case...even fishing in a ditch if you're planning to transport the fish you've caught, you have to have a license...but they not only didn't have licenses, they were from out of state, they had illegal sized fish in a bucket and they were leaving trash all over the ground...when I asked if the empty water bottles all over the ground were theirs the response was "hey it's a lousy ditch, who cares about a little trash on the ground?" "I do!" was my response...and with that, I walked to the back of her vehicle and wrote down the license plate number and make of the car. "Hey why are you doing that?" she asked...and my curt reply was "I'm going to stay here until you pick up every single piece of trash you left on the ground, or I'm turning you in for littering and fishing without a license"...they picked up all their trash, and then some!
It was late, so I headed towards some promising locations that I had marked on my maps and found several new places to wet a line, where it's more than obvious that no one's tried yet - probably because they're well off the beaten path, or because the people who do fish there are more concientious about picking up their trash when they leave.
Anyway, I now have several "new" locations to go when the fishing gets tough.
Tried one old haunt that hasn't been all that well since the drought for a few minutes and managed to land a small bass on a weightless T-rigged Tiki worm with a 5/0 annodized green Eagle Claw Wide Gap Hook...while working some duckweed that blew up against a culvert. This ditch is now 3 feet above normal stage which is great, because that means that there's the possibility that more fish have worked their way in to the area I fish.
Nature Notes: I saw 26 deer this afternoon, a vulture sitting in a field devouring a fresh carcass, cardinal flowers everywhere, the bees are working the clover and thistle feverishly, several hummingbirds, butterflies were everywhere - hundreds of monarchs and a few I have yet to identify.
...all in all, another fine afternoon had by me, down by the Kankakee!
[signature]