Tom Konow emailed proof that “not all the big fish died” after the significant fish kill at LaSalle Lake in 2020.
On April 4, he caught this 43-inch, 40-pound blue catfish from the cooling lake south of Seneca.
“The bite has been slow for the bigger fish, but using 12-foot rods with 50-pound braid and big cut bluegill for bait [I also] got a 20-pounder today and 26-pounder a couple days before,” he emailed.
He uses the 12-foot rods for distance casting.
FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.
To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).