We were taking a water break from c...

We were taking a water break from chasing smallmouth bass along the DuPage River in subordination to some oaks in a park.

"When I was in my 20 I reflection I would find a piece of work without politics," Tom Grose said. "I consideration science was it."

He sometimes reminds me of a crotchety neighbor, a bearded, graying idealist who has seen realism on the contrary disdains shaking its hand.

Our late July outing really began five years ago. In a spat of crotchetiness, Grose who is living within societal upheavals in Pilsen, became f up with access forward the lakefront and began exploring the DuPage instead.

"I wanted to ride my bike, and I wanted to be in the woods" said Grose who one time regularly made bike tours of more than 1000 miles. "I brought my bike public and found all these little spots"

We began our afternoon of shore fishing and wading the lower DuPage at an unnamed verdant space in Shorewood. My wife and I one time lived a few miles away, moreover I never knew the speckle existed. My DuPage spots were farther upstream.

Grose has hon this way of fishing to the basics. He carries couple rods, ultralight or light spinning wands usually with 4-pound monofilament. And he favors self-same small jigs. His explanation is crotchety, simple. "Fish don't eat rocks" he said. "When [big jigs] fall, it awaits like a rock to them."

His starter is a plastic finesse tail forward a 1/32nd-ounce jig tipped with maggots. I plant up similarly.

"If you find a certain quantity of panfish, you slaughter them with that," Grose said. "That finesse tail has caught fish in each state I've fished in."

For exceedingly active fish or something different, the next to the first rod has a 3-inch Berkley Power Minnow or a drop-shot minnow that floats horizontally forward a 1/32nd- or 1/16th-ounce crappie jig.

We caught small smallmouth and bluegills from the first cast forward Then a young man forward a bike leaned over a bridge and told of catching a 4oe-pound smallmouth a pair hundred yards away and having it high hilled

With that we mov to near Minooka, a former farm town subdividing into a city. nevertheless we still could park along the road, then walk a ditch to united of those spots that win smallmouth fishermen excited.

From a knotty hole by the bridge, the DuPage curv around a large flat with significant eddies. Well-hidden, an upstream resident had his johnboat rapiered in the shade of the bridge. He was having to such a degree much fun, he welcomed us in.

Shortly after a 3-pound-range smallmouth explod in front rank of the boat, Grose caught our first quality smallmouth with the Berkley minnow rig. We caught more than a dozen, nothing too big.

That's fairly typical of the lower DuPage, which has an "excellent" smallmouth population, according to streams specialist knock Rung. The 1996 flood blew public the Channahon dam (since rebuilt) and allowed more fish access.

round put the DuPage with the Fox as single in kind of our quality streams. "Nothing smooth comes close to the Kankakee," he said. "You can't have a river in an urban situation [like the DuPage] that doesn't pay a certain number of penalty for it."

nearest was Channahon, which was heavy until we tried the canal section with arise and caught quality largemouth bass. As we debated a last stop, I realized I had consum a gallon of water and a quart of lemonade and still was dried

It was time. We caught and released more than three dozen smallmouth.

At domestic circle an e-mail from Grose awaited. "I revisited the [bridge] after you left Caught 5 SM in the shadows. 4 onward the power minnow, 1 in succession finesse tail & a nice gill. Biggest SM was [16 inches]."

"Bowman's Outdoor Line" is heard upon "Outdoors with Mike Norris"

(3-4 pm Thursdays, 1280-AM).

dbowman@suntimes.com

first cast

"They're everywhere."

Multiple lakefront fishermen, forward Tuesday, when fishing for

golden perch by adults reopened forward Lake Michigan in Illinois. The height bite last week might journey down as one of the greatest in August for Chicago shore fishermen.

field notes

very warm COOL: As the heat broke Thursday, the fisheries in the couple northeast Illinois cooling lakes appeared to survive. "I'm hopeful that we got by the and of it," biologist Rob Miller of Braidwood Lake said.

"I largely expected to hear big reports of fish kills." Other than a certain gizzard shad, most species at Braidwood handled the spike in water temperature well into the 100 The same appears veracious at LaSalle Lake, where repeated checks make go rounded up no evidence of a fish kill.

"I think we are on the outside of the woods," biologist view Clodfelter said.

PLACES AND FACES: The big experiment begins Tuesday when the ATA Grand American arrives

at the World Shooting

and Recreational network

in Sparta for the first time. Whether the John Deere-pull trams (right) will be able to strictly transport the expected thousands of shooter is just single in kind question as the World Series of shooting hastes until Aug. 18. ... The Illinois State Fair, which make opens Friday and runs through Aug. 20 is more than just corn dogs, fried Snickers and sweat. I highly approve a visit to Conservation World, exempt once inside the fair.