I have been a member of Little John Conservaton Club near Victoria, IL for over thirty years. That membership came courtesy of Mom and Dad who have been members going back nearly forty years. Plenty of memories, and just a few fish caught out there over all those years during fishing, camping, and day trips to the area. A number of those adventures have also included a third generation as my kids, nieces, and nephews have lined the shorelines, roamed the grounds, and gathered around picnic tables or firepits through the last twenty-plus years.

2013 Flashback – same lake with Natalee in foreground, Jayce the guy in the green shirt and Papa providing guidance

Mom and Dad have eight grandkids, and on October 10, a couple of them came up with a plan for a fishing trip. My niece, Natalee, had been wanting to fish for a while but life gets different when those kids aren’t little anymore. As teenagers to twenty-somethings, they are pulled in many directions and half of them are far (and farther) from home. At any rate, the group of eight was whittled down to a dynamic duo of two for this trip, Natalee, and my oldest boy, Jayce.

And I got to play fishing guide, while Mom and Dad had a front row seat on the bank and observed. We launched Dad’s 1987 Bass Tracker mid-afternoon armed with Senko wacky rigs which are typically a winner in the clear strip mine waters of Club Lake.

I’d rate the fishing as fair as the duo landed five bass in roughly a two-hour cruise. We hit productive spots with a proven winner in the Senko but just couldn’t get anything going. We pondered shifting gears to other presentations but those two have had success with our offering so they opted to go all in with the wacky rig.

While I do not have any sort of post-trip survey to rate my guide service, I was a little disappointed in not being able to put them on more (and larger) fish. Even so, they both seemed to enjoy the time on the water and indicated that they would consider my “services” again.

As we headed for home, Dad and I hopped in his truck with the boat in tow while the two kids rode/drove home with Mom. While there were new memories created on the water on this day, there were also old memories shared on the drive to and from the fishing hole. I dig reminiscing about those “fish stories” as that is what it is all about, no matter the results. And boy, do we have a few tales. Now Natalee and Jayce have another one to add to their repertoire. Talk to you later. Troy

While I still have one pool remaining in my quest to post double-digit Top 5 weights on a stretch of twenty-five contiguous pools, I chose to give the pursuit a break for this outing. Instead, I selected a pair of pools connected via a tube that each had starting weights in the ten-pound range. The aims were to knock any of the one-pounders out of the creels and boost the Top 5 weights beyond the ten-pound range.

10:51am – Top Bass #3 weighing 2-1 (16″) on a spinnerbait

Stats
Date: October 4
Location: Hennepin Canal (2 pools)
Time: 10:50am-2:25pm
Totals: 7 bass
Weather: Sunny/breezy, 55-72F
Water temperature: Not available
Lures: War Eagle Spinnerbait (chartreuse/white) with BPS double tail trailer (Houdini) – 6 bass, Booyah Buzzbait (white) – 1 bass
Top Bass: 3-8 (spinnerbait)
Top 5 Weight: 11-0 (3-8,2-13,2-1,1-5,1-5)

Winning lures

Notes and Nonsense

The Hennepin Hundred – The first full weekend of October sees an ultramarathon along the historic waterway called “The Hennepin Hundred.” The top tier of the race covers one hundred miles along The Canal with the finish line being in Colona. The race begins on Saturday morning and for several years I have tried to be on the water Sunday morning to observe participants as they work their way towards the goal. I got a late start on this trip and ventured a bit further from home, but I did get to observe one runner plugging away with over a dozen miles to go. Impressive, and a little crazy.

12:03pm – Top Bass #2 weighing 2-13 (18″) on a spinnerbait

Pool One – The starting Top 5 Weight on this stretch stood at 10-1 (2-8,2-2,1-14,1-13,1-12), so my aim was to see if I could land three two-pounders to knock the one-pound fish out of the creel. On my fourth cast of the morning, I had one of them in the boat, a solid fish weighing 2-1 on a spinnerbait. Roughly an hour later, with three more one-pound fish added to the log, I had my second two-pounder hooked on a buzzbait, but it wrapped me on a lily pad stem and got loose. That one stung but ten minutes later a 2-13 would ease the disappointment and establish a new Top Bass for this pool displacing a 2-8 caught in 2024. I left this stretch with five bass in two hours and one two-pounder shy of meeting my goal. All good though as I got a significant boost to end with an all-time Top 5 on the pool of 11-6 (2-13,2-8,2-2,2-1,1-14).

1:31pm – Top Bass weighing 3-8 (19″) on a spinnerbait

Pool Two – Heading through a tube, I took a shot at an adjacent pool that had a starting Top 5 Weight of 10-12 (3-0,2-5,2-0,1-14,1-9). In an hour and a half, I would only land two bass but the first of those catches would establish a new Top Bass for the pool tipping the scales at 3-8. A bonus aspect of the catch was that it came with an audience of two shoreline anglers, one of whom was quite congratulatory about the catch. We had an entertaining, shouting conversation from about fifty yards across The Canal but it was loud and clear that we were both enthused by the catch. The bass knocked the 1-9 out of my existing Top 5 creel for a nearly two-pound boost up to the current weight of 12-11 (3-8,3-0,2-5,2-0,1-14).

Well, I didn’t quite knock out all the one-pounders, but I will take these results any day. A daily Top 10 exceeding ten pounds and establishing a new Top Bass on each of the pools was a winner. The seven bass for this trip pushed my 2026 total to 474 bass and set my sights on hitting the 500 mark for the year. Stay tuned as there are more fishing reports to come, including a pair of guest anglers. Talk to you later. Troy

My streak of monthly visits to Lake Storey continued as I squeezed in a late September outing. Fall of 2026 looked different on the old lake as the traditional drawdown was not implemented since the lake was lowered for the first half of the year due to a construction project. While the unique situation had me intrigued, there was also some disappointment as chasing bass in the low pool conditions has been a tradition for many years. And speaking of disappointment…

Stats
Date: September 28
Location: Lake Storey
Time: 9:00am-1:15pm
Totals: 4 bass
Weather: Sunny/calm to breezy, 56-72F
Water temperature: Not available
Lures: War Eagle Spinnerbait (white/chartreuse) with BPS double tail trailer (Houdini) – 3 bass, Bomber Deep Flat A (mad craw) – 1 bass
Top Bass: 1-2 (Spinnerbait)
Only one bass at 12” or better

Notes and Nonsense

Bass #700 – At 9:32am, I landed my first bass on a spinnerbait retrieved along a bit of shoreline wood cover. Right on target for my expected pattern for a fall day. While the catch was not the most impressive specimen at nine inches, it represented Lake Storey Bass #700 since the advent of continuous record keeping back in 1997. Including the four bass landed on this trip, two hundred and thirteen of those have come in the last two years. This is a result of an uptick in time invested on the lake, primarily due to the extended and increased drawdown.

9:32am – First bass and Lake Storey Bass #700 since “modern” record keeping

Confidence Bait Collapse – As noted in the previous paragraph, my thoughts were that I could find plenty of bass around wood cover that would take a liking to a spinnerbait. After one hour, I had three such bass in the boat. Over the next three hours, I would not get another fish on a spinnerbait. In fact, I would only catch one more bass with that fish coming on a flat-sided crankbait. The lack of success on my go to baits left me scrambling and I could not put anything together. I hit many of my spots, but the bass were either not home or not interested.

Winning lures

Fellow Angler Feedback – Just over midway through this outing, I encountered another bass angler who wasn’t having much more success than my creel of four bass at that point. We had a good chat about bass fishing in general as well as covering some specifics on Lake Storey. On this day, he had been pitching a jig or creature bait and had four bass in his creel with the largest in the two-pound range. I’d also tossed these baits in several spots during my time on the water without a nibble and his report did not prompt me to change up my routine. I did throw around a pair of crankbaits as I have seen an angler online reporting great success with the baits both in terms of numbers and size. My offerings consisted of a squarebill, a flat-sided model, and a deep diver with a Bomber Flat A landing my lone crankbait fish. I couldn’t get anything going with those lures, either.

10:00am – Top Bass weighing 1-2 (12″) on a crankbait

Conclusion – Dirty water did not help me as there had been a great deal of rain leading up to this trip. Lake Storey typically has a green hue which was lacking throughout the entire lake. Instead, the water had a brownish tint and got progressively dirtier the farther uplake I progressed. The drawdown also tends to put fish in more predictable locations on or around the cover that would typically be in the 8-10’ foot depth at normal pool. With that said, it seems that my focus on beating the bank meant that many of my fish remained beneath me or behind me.

September 28, 2002 – Happy Anniversary (Julie had to work and could not accompany me on this September 28, 2026 outing)

My intent is to get on the lake once in October to complete my goal of a monthly visit March through October. The precipitation has diminished as I write this report in mid-October, so I am hoping that the lake will trend towards a more natural clarity. In addition, I aim to spend a fair amount of my time probing some deeper water than I typically fish. We’ll see how it works out. Talk to you later. Troy

This outing started out with the goal of boosting a pool into double digits. If that goal was attained, the next step was to hop back a couple of pools to a spot that already had a ten-pound limit but that I had not fished for over two years. Kind of a change of scenery thing and a break from the double-digit quest. Well, a good start got me thinking that it might be my lucky day and I made a change in plans. Read on for the rest of the story.

Winning lures

Stats
Date: September 26
Location: Hennepin Canal (3 pools)
Time: 7:25-8:55am, 9:30-10:30am, 10:40am-12:25pm
Totals: 11 bass
Weather: Partly cloudy to sunny/breezy, 53-65F
Water temperature: Not available
Lures: War Eagle Spinnerbait (white/chartreuse) with BPS double tail trailer (Houdini) – 8 bass, Booyah Buzz Buzzbait (black) – 3 bass
Top Bass: 2-12 (Spinnerbait)
Top 5 Weight: 11-1 (2-12,2-4,2-1,2-0,2-0)

Notes and Nonsense

8:04am – Top Bass Spot One weighing 2-1 (16″) on a spinnerbait

Spot One – First stop was a pool that I was visiting for the fourth time this year and featured a starting Top 5 Weight of 9-10 (2-5,1-15,1-13,1-13,1-12). Fifteen minutes into casting, a 2-0 on a spinnerbait provided a boost of four ounces to get me tantalizingly close to my mark at 9-14. Just over twenty minutes later, the same spinnerbait fooled a 2-1 to push my weight to 10-2. Mission accomplished and a dilemma on the prospect of leaving a good bite to visit another pool. I hung around for another half hour before leaving the spot. An hour and a half had resulted in a total of five bass with a daily Top 5 weight of 8-2.

9:33am – Top Bass Spot Two weighing 2-12 (16″) on a spinnerbait

Spot Two – Feeling lucky, I opted for a change from my initial plan and headed for the two remaining spots that lacked a ten-pound Top 5. Starting weight on this pool was 6-7 but only featured four bass. Therefore, the entire weight of my first “keeper” would be added to the creel. On my fourth cast, I found that bite and it would represent the largest bass I’d caught in the pool weighing 2-12. With every ounce of the fish contributing to the Top 5, the weight bumped up to 9-3. Twenty minutes later, I added a 1-9 for a two-ounce boost and followed up with a 2-4 to push the weight to 10-3. With the double-digit bag in the books, I headed for the other side of the tube to see if I could post a trifecta of successes.

11:54am – Top Bass Spot Three weighing 2-0 (15″) on a spinnerbait

Spot Three – Similar to Spot Two, this was my second visit to the pool, and I had yet to fill my five fish limit. Starting weight consisted of only two bass totaling 3-2. Thus, the full weights of the first three “keepers” would provide a boost. In an hour and forty-five minutes, I found those three bites, one of which established a new Top Bass for the pool weighing 2-0. The others tipped the scales at 1-6 and 1-7 to bump the Top Weight for the area to 7-15, short of my goal but a solid boost.

As Meatloaf sang, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” The results leave only Spot Three lacking a ten-pound Top 5 among the twenty-five pools on my checklist. In tallying the daily results, a batch of five bass at two pounds or better is a winner and the total weight of those five fish at 11-1 meets my ultimate daily goal in exceeding double digits. I’ll take that any day on the water. Talk to you later. Troy

After waiting out several hours of Saturday morning rain, I headed out for a few midday hours on The Canal. For this outing, I left the boat behind and hit an area that is angler friendly for those on foot. Several quality bass turned out to be friendly, too, while Mother Nature dealt some additional rain.

Stats
Date: September 19
Location: Hennepin Canal (2 pools)
Time: 11:30am-2:30pm
Totals: 6 bass
Weather: Overcast/calm/light rain, 70-76F
Water temperature: Not available
Lures: Spro Flappin Frog 65 (nasty shad) – 5 bass, 5” Yamasenko wacky rig (strawberry cream) – 1 bass
Top Bass: 2-7 (Frog)
Top 5 Weight: 8-13 (2-7,1-15,1-13,1-10,1-0)

Winning lures

Notes and Nonsense

Before The Rain – I opted to start with a lengthy walk and then fish my way back to the truck rather than fishing my way out and taking a more rapid pace on the return. The latter is my normal approach, but I wanted to spend some time on a more distant portion of my route and there were a pair of anglers already present near the parking lot. As best I can, I try to give fellow bank anglers plenty of space rather than leapfrogging and fishing in proximity ahead of them. After a twenty-five-minute walk and nearly forty-five minutes of casting, I finally landed my first bass weighing fifteen ounces and coming on a topwater frog. Not exactly how I envisioned starting my day. And then the rain showed up.

12:22pm – Top Bass of the trip weighing 2-7 (17″) on a frog

During the Rain – When the rain returned, I was over a mile walk from my truck. For a great many miles of the walking path that typically leaves a pair of choices. Choice number one – find a place to shelter if you have sufficient tree canopy across the path away from the bank. Choice number two – stand out in the rain and keep casting (I failed to bring rain gear). Fortunately, as the rain began to fall, I was only a few dozen yards from a massive, sprawling cottonwood with some of its branches extending over the path. A perfect setup to not only keep me somewhat dry, but also placing me near enough to the bank to keep on casting. Lucky for me, the rain doesn’t matter much to the bass as they are already wet, and one was in the neighborhood that took a liking to my frog. And it gave my Top 5 on the stretch a solid boost. The fish weighed in at 2-7 and knocked a 1-8 out of my creel.

Rainy release of the day’s Top Bass

After the Rain – Luckily, the rain did not last long but the effect of the slight weather change doubled my results with four bass landed over the remaining time on the water. Each of the catches were “keepers” (12” or better and all released) with weights ranging from 1-10 to 1-15. Three came on the frog while the other hit a wacky rigged Senko.

1:17pm – Top Bass Runner-Up of the trip weighing 1-15 (14.5″) on frog

Top 5 Update – The addition of the 2-7 and 1-13 on one of the two pools boosted my all-time Top 5 Weight on the location from 10-1 to 11-3 (culled a 1-10 and 1-8). One of my aims on this trip was to boost what I call a “low ten” limit. Pools with a “low ten” have a Top weight anywhere in the ten-pound range. As I only have one of twenty-five pools that lacks a ten-pound limit, this is one of the next stages of my quest. These next steps include bumping low weights beyond the ten-pound range, getting rid of any one-pounders in my creels, and giving any “cheap tens” added legitimacy. The latter aspect kind of goes along with knocking out the one-pounders. For example, the starting weight of 10-1 on one of these pools was anchored by the largest bass I have ever landed on The Canal (3-10,1-11,1-10,1-10,1-8). This skews the total in a way and leaves me with ample room to improve the weight in bumping those lighter fish.

Mission accomplished as I was able to eliminate a “low ten” on the pool that needed that type of boost. The 2-7 Top Bass for the day came from that pool and inspired me to visit the stretch again to see if I could find three more similar bites to get rid of the rest of those one-pounders. That is a fish story for another day as I continue to catch up on the fishing reports. Stay tuned and talk to you later. Troy