LaSalle Lake: A taste of opening day and prospects for the season

MARSEILLES, Ill. — ‘‘Mike,’’ who was coming back along the gravel road above the riprap at LaSalle Lake, said: ‘‘They’re catching hybrids and blues from mile marker 50 to 70.’’

That was advice I could use on the opening day for fishing at the lake last Wednesday. I had only a couple of hours before sunset and, in the wind, figured I would need to do bait and had chicken livers and night crawlers.

The next guy I passed on my way to marker 50 said he had caught a mess of blue catfish.

‘‘Eaters or big ones?’’ I asked.

‘‘Both,’’ he said.

He estimated his two biggest at 15 and 22 pounds. That qualifies as big.

Just before marker 50, I spotted Bounnak Thammavong landing a fish. It was about a 15-inch blue. The artist/engineer from Kingston in DeKalb County was doing all right for his first time at LaSalle, the cooling lake south of Seneca. It was his third blue, and he had arrived only minutes ahead of me.

I so love LaSalle that I normally sleep the night before in line. But I’ve reached the point in life — age and blood thinners — where, on an overly cold morning with wind on a perched lake, I can wait until the afternoon warmup.

Opening-day reports matched expectations.

The fishery should be what it has been in recent years, with blue catfish ‘‘the star, for sure’’ and hybrid striped bass continuing ‘‘to be the close second,’’ fisheries biologist David Wyffels emailed.

He added that he had received ‘‘lots of good bass reports from last spring’’ for both smallmouth and largemouth.

I go back far enough to remember when you expected tremendous catches — numbers and size — of bass at LaSalle. But, like much of life, it has evolved through the decades.

The scheduled every-other-year fish survey could not be done last year, but the blues were surveyed and showed ‘‘larger fish returning, too, after the major fish kill of 2020,’’ Wyffels emailed. ‘‘But overall catch rates were down from pre-2020 kill numbers. We will continue to monitor this population.’’

As to the size of blues, he emailed: ‘‘Largest I have sampled in my 10 years at LaSalle was over 35 inches. The largest catfish species was actually a flathead that was over 50 pounds. The largest that I have heard of was the one fish that you reported on of 73 [pounds], I believe.’’

He also noted: ‘‘Last year, no notable fish kills happened on the lake. Thank goodness!’’

The fish kill in 2020 hit big blues and hybrids particularly hard, but they have come back strong. That’s the fish-factory nature of cooling lakes.

Stockings were the usual: blues, 20,500 advanced fingerlings (4 to 7 inches); largemouth, 23,337 advanced fingerlings and 38,159 fingerlings (1 to 3 inches); smallmouth, 28,246 advanced fingerlings; and hybrids (a cross of striped bass and white bass), 16,802 fingerlings.

Hours are 6 a.m. to sunset daily. Boaters were able to get out early on opening day, but wind had forced the launch to close to new boaters later. As a perched lake, boating is closed when winds top or will top 14 mph. Check daily updates on boating at (815) 640-8099.

Illinois River

Tony Karrick of Elgin and Ohioan Sam Cappelli won the two-day Masters Walleye Circuit tournament Saturday out of Spring Valley with 21 pounds, 6 ounces. . . . The two-day National Walleye Tour event is out of Spring Valley through this afternoon.

Stray cast

Alabama looks like the big muskie of the NCAA Tournament, albeit with a nasty spawning scar.