The DuPage is one of my favorite rivers to fish. It’s gorgeous, has plenty of access, is conveniently located outside my home town of Chicago. Best of all, it offers awesome fishing.

Bouncing around park to park along the river provides plenty of opportunities to find fishy water. If one place ain’t fishing right, move on to the next. You could spend many a day exploring each section of the river and catch lots of fish along the way.

I did just that this past weekend, hopping from spot to spot with my fly rod in hand. It was a very productive day- was able to catch smallmouth, bluegill, and saw some giant carp that I will hook one day when they decide to stop being so finicky.

DuPage River Overview

The DuPage River is a 28 mile long tributary of the Des Plaines River in Illinois. It flows through several of the Western Chicago suburbs of Bloomingdale, Wheaton, and Naperville. The DuPage has two stems, the East Branch and the West Branch, that merge into the main stem near Bloomindale.

There are tons of riverwalks and trails, including an especially pretty one through Naperville, that offers great access to the river. The many parks along the river also offer great access. A full day of popping from park to park and fishing individual stretches is full of variety and itches the exploratory scratch that many anglers feel. If you’re an angler looking for a spot to wade fish, I would highly recommend the DuPage.

DuPage River Conditions

I focused my attention of the West Branch of the DuPage, a river on which I have had success and is perfect for the wading angler.

It was a beautiful day for fishing. Chicago Spring/Early Summer is in full swing. Air temps were in the mid 70’s with some decent cloud cover. Air pressure was steady  and it just flat out felt good to be outside.

This day, the water was flowing at around 50-60 CFS according to the West Branch DuPage River USGS near Naperville, which is low for the river. I’ve fished this river before with low water and had some deeper spots in mind that I thought would produce fish.  

With that water being so low, it was also ultra-clear. I knew natural patterns would be the ticket- certainly wouldn’t need any gaudy patterns to get a fish’s attention. Maybe something something with a little flash to spark the fish’s curiosity.

I unfortunately forgot my thermometer so I couldn’t get a good gauge on what the water temperature was. For all the preparation that we do for our fishing, isn’t it funny that we always seem to forget something?

Gear

I wanted to throw some bigger patterns that I had tied over the winter. I really like this Wisco Cisco pattern I learned about in Smallmouth: Modern Fly-Fishing Methods, Tactics, and Techniques. I think it’s an awesome baitfish pattern that fishes like an old-school Fluke. Something about this fly get’s me fired up!

I knew there were large fish in there so I had an 8 weight in my hand. I’ve seen some pretty big fish in the DuPage, especially the smallmouth, and wanted to be prepared for them. I paired that up with a Bass Bug floating line with a 10 lb tippet. Also carried some 15 lbs in case the big boys and girls were coming out to play. The 8 weight might have been a little overkill, but it’s better to be overprepared than underprepared right?

This was also the first day that I was wet wading. Personally, I like wet wading more than wearing my waders and after a full season of gearing up with a ton of gear on your body it felt good to slim down. Plus it feels like the fish are jealous of my awesome Crocs and always want to come check them out.

I was also hoping the cicada hatch would be in full swing. I saw a few shells on the ground, but unfortunately did not see any sort of hatch going off. Must be a little early for it-hopefully it comes soon.

Fish Caught

It was a good day on the DuPage River. I caught several smallmouth that my eye scale put it around 3 lbs and several others in the 1 lb to 2 lb range. I had success on the larger patterns but as the day progressed they seemed to want something a little smaller and I switched over to the trusty ol’ Wooly Bugger. Once I tied on the Wooly Bugger, every fish in the water took a bite- smallies, bluegill, rock bass, even a couple carp took a look out of curiosity.

On any given fishing day, there are moments that become snapshots in your memory. Images that forever will be imprinted in your mind. This was one of them. Early in the day I casted towards an overhanging tree and pulled one of my Wisco Cisco out from underneath. As I stripped it out of the shadows, a fast moving wake created by a large smallmouth emerged as it bull-rushed from its hiding spot and annihilated my fly. The aggressiveness and ferocity of that fish is something that I’ll always remember.

Around noon, the fish took their afternoon siesta and I took a little break of my own during the lull. I live in Chicago and love it, though getting away from the traffic, noise, and crowds is one of the allures of fishing for me. Simply sitting in nature is calming and rejuvenating for me, so simply sitting there listening to the water flow by was one of the better parts of the day, even though there wasn’t a fish on the end of my line.

As the day progressed the fish seemed to move out of the shallows and towards deeper water. I fished some deeper holes that I found and pulled out a few small ones but nothing matched the sight fishing that I had in the morning.

As the sun went down later in the afternoon the fishing started to pick up again. The fish returned to the shallows and I was able to do a little more sight fishing for them. I picked up a few more fish as dusk approached and after picking up a solid 2 lb smallmouth posted up in slack water next to a fast run, I decided to call it a day.

What I Learned

Every day you go fishing there’s something to learn. If you pick up one new thing every time you go fishing,  over time you’re going to be a pretty damn good angler.

On this day I got a harsh reminder of the consequences of being lazy. After I caught a few fish I had hooked into a decent fish that pretty much instantaneously snapped off. My tippet must have been frayed after wearing down from several fish caught and I was too lazy to 1) examine my tippet and 2) change it out. It was a good reminder that you should check your tippet every time you catch a fish!

I also had an interest in experience on this day. Given the time of the year and the water conditions, there were still several fish actively spawning. In former days I would unabashedly cast that these fish until they instinctively took a bite to protect their beds. However on this trip something came over me and I felt guilty fishing to these spawners.

There was one especially large fish (probably the biggest fish of the day) that I did catch off of a bed but instantly regretted it as I reeled him in. From now on, I’ve all but decided to let these spawning fish do their thing and move on when I see fish actively protecting their beds. From a guy that at one point would have no qualms snagging fish with a treble hook (that was a long time ago), things have come a long way!

Overall, it was a great day on the DuPage. I tried some new flies, caught some fish, and simply enjoyed being outside. Can’t wait to do it again!