Re: fishing the illinois river anyone?
I've fished it, launched out of Pierre Marquette St. Park. Never done very good on the river down there. Sad part is, the river maps posted on the internet indicate that a bunch of those backwater sloughs are connected to the river so you'll have access to them. That's not the case. Most have some sort of dyke structure at the connection point or a dam. There's some fishy looking structure on the river(boat docks, rock dykes, the marina itself at the state park, stumps, etc. but again, I never did much good.