[krnfishboy7786]

I'm planning on going out to Deep Lake for the first time draggin' the gf who's going to tan while I fish, so it's a win win situation for me, lol

I've read all of the reports on the webboard + info. posted about the lake, but does anybody have any last minute tips before I actually hit the water?

Chances are that I'm going to be getting there after lunch right in the middle of the afternoon right in the middle of July.... so I'm going to probably be going up against some hot and slow conditions. I'm planning on definitely fishing the shallows up north, hit "the point" as you guys call it, and probably the southern end of the lake if we have enough time + if I can row that much b/c I don't plan on getting a motor. Have you guys had any luck fishing deeper water? Is there a lot of fishing pressure over there this time of year too?

Thanks for any help.

 

[JasonN]

Hey Tim...

Looks like Sunday is going to be partly cloudy with temps in the lower 80's and a se wind 10mph. Not too bad, but not great either. There will be a moderate amount of people fishing Deep Lake tomorrow, but the BIG deal will be all the water skiers, jet skiers, etc. It gets REAL annoying when a constant wake from these crafts rocks your boat around all afternoon so THAT will be your biggest challenge.

Download the Deep Lake depth map on the main page http://www.windycityfishing.com/deep.htm

That drop-off around the "point" is great for finding suspending/deep fish during the day. If there is a lot of sun, stick with jigs/soft plastics. If its cloudy/windy, go with spinners, chatterbait, etc.

Good luck out there! Looking forward to your report.

 

[cheeks18]

I actually went there friday at 7 AM and was fishing texas rig plastics and top water poppers not much luck alot of small bass and crappie but when i went to the sand bar and then towards the north bay there were some guys catchin some nice bass with a top water weedless white frog so if you wanna try just jerkin it ontop of the weeds im pretty sure you'll have some luck.

 

[krnfishboy7786]

Thought that the weather was going to be stormy, but it actually turned out to be a pretty nice day: Upper 70's, 5-10 mph winds from the SE, and party cloudy skies.

Fortunately, I got to fish today for about 4 and a half hours.

Unfortunately, I got to Deep Lake right in the middle of the afternoon at 1:30pm, and Jason you were so right -- the water skiers, speed boats, jet-skis were insane!! I swear, sometimes they were so close that I could feel the water spraying at me, and other times I'd see the same speedboat go around in circles around the lake always making sure to pass by my boat from about 20-30 feet away. Blah, the gf thought it was rather amusing though...lol

In terms of fishing, I rowed all the way to the north end to find it heavily fished by 4 different boats... but I still tried anyway fishing senkos and even a frog for a bit, didn't get anything. The weeds were really thick and pretty hard to penetrate, so I also tried a fishing the edge of the weeds with a spinnerbait with no luck. Afterwards, I rowed to what you guys call "The Point" but I actually had a hard time finding it? I'm like 99% I was exactly where the map said it would be, but I never hit bottom with the anchor... so I'm guessing I was slightly off. However, I fished all around this area with senkos, spinnerbait, and X-Rap without any luck. I also spent quite a while working on my carolina-rigging skills using a 7" Pumpkinseed powerworm on a 20" leader above the swivel/bullet weight dragged across the bottom, but yeah no luck with that either.

After a whole crap load of rowing, I decided to stop periodically along the west shoreline of the lake as I made my way down to the south end. I fished the pads but nothing was happening.

Finally, when I got to the south end, I set anchor about 50 feet off shore and this was one of the only parts of the lake where there weren't crazy weeds near shore. I flipped a senko (5" Grn. Pumpkin) under a dock and caught my one and only fish.

Let's just say that, I thought that it was weeds when I pulled it up b/c it didn't even tug once.

I fished all along the south end and up the east shore line back to Jack & Lidia's "resort" and ended around 6:00pm when I'm guessing the fishing was just picking up.

Does anybody else find their little "resort" a little sketchy? They didn't even ask me for an identification or to fill out any paperwork, I just signed some random slip of paper that had hardly any writing on it? lol... it was quite an interesting trip, but I DEFINITELY want to get back out there in the morning or the evening sometime. The photos they have there of the bass people have been catching are awesome.

 

[JasonN]

LMAO! You certainly ran into all the Deep Lake recreation!

The thing I LOVE about Jack & Lidia's is just what you say... you sign a little piece of paper and you HAVE A BOAT ALL DAY! - No bullshit, no problems!

The absolute BEST time to fish Deep Lake is at sunrise (6am when they open). All the locals are too hungover to get out that early with the jet-skiis, etc.

 

[krnfishboy7786]

Yeah man, I wana get out there as soon as possible again. $15 bucks per day is a great price, and it'll be 100 times better without all the annoying boats and stuff at 6am.

Hey but, tell me more about this "point" ?
Is it like significantly shallower that you can see? Maybe the wake from all the recreation was keepin' me from seein it, but everywhere I dropped anchor around that area was 10+ feet deep. Does is start like right where the weeds end on the northwest end? Map says it should be 5-6 feet deep all the way until the halfway point back to the eastern side, man I musta been blind. Thanks.

 

[Augy]

You gave it a valiant effort if you rowed from the north end to the south. Just get there early to avoid recreation traffic and better morning bite. Soon, as the temps. cool down there will be no recreation traffic at all and the lake should be primarily reserved for fishing.

 

[George W]

ITS A GREAT DAY OUT ON THE WATER WHETHER OR NOT YOU CATCH ANYTHING, NICE REPORT

GEORGE

PERCH GUY
CHICAGO ILLINOIS
]