Adam Johnson Outdoors • Reading Outdoors

Fishing the Illinois River

By Scott Fairbairn

At heart I'm a jig fisherman. I grew up jig fishing on the Mississippi River and most of the lakes in Minnesota and I'm very comfortable with a jig rod in my hand - especially chasing sauger on the Illinois River.

There are things that saugers like, that are unique to sauger fishing, and once you learn this you will know how to trigger them.

The one thing you discover quickly on the Illinois River is that the water level will dictate how you fish. I've been to the Illinois River when the river is up in the cornfields and it's a nightmare trying to catch fish. I've been there during many different water levels and there's little doubt that this is the most important factor that dictates where the fish will be.

When the flow is low you start to look for holes and trenches and deeper spots where the sauger migrate to get access to shallow water. For the most part though, these fish are going to hang in the holes in the deeper water. In lower water their instinct is to hang in the deepest water that is available. When they feed they move up to the edges in a little shallower water. With this in mind you can eliminate certain stretches of river because only certain locations will have the structure that's capable of holding fish.

You focus on the areas where there is shallow water adjacent to deeper water. The saugers will rest in that deeper water and when they want to eat they move up towards the shallower water and they feed on the edge of those holes. That's why I target the drop into the hole and the rise out of the hole. An edge going down one side or the other is where the aggressive fish will be.

Some of the spots can be very subtle. On a couple of spots on the Illinois River I've discovered areas that consisted of long stretches that were eight to ten feet deep and then the bottom dropped off into 12 to 13 feet for 30 to 40 yards and then the bottom came back up to ten feet. It was enough for the saugers to lay down under the current and use the dip for a resting spot. When they were ready to feed they just moved up to the shallow edges where my bait was.

Some of the holes are very obvious. You're motoring down the river and the bottom is 15 feet and all of a sudden it drops into a 20 to 30 foot hole and runs that way for a little while and then comes up again. That's an obvious hole, which would be worth checking.

It takes a vertical jigging approach. When you're sauger fishing a lift and hold and glide is the best presentation. Walleyes like movement and they want that jig to be up and down. A sauger triggers when the jig stops and is left to set for a second or too. You just hold the jig six to eight inches off the bottom and that's when they drill it. It's a different presentation than the typical walleye jigging motion, which is lots of action.

I don't use live bait with this approach. I use a Power Bait for a trailer on the jig and mix up the colors and body styles. I always start off with a three-inch Power Grub in the green/chartreuse and then if that's not working I switch to the pink. For sauger you stick to orange, pink, green and chartreuse. In many cases I will vertical jig with one rod that has a green/chartreuse trailer tipping the jig and on the other rod use a pink tail and mix up the head colors but those two bodies are usually the ticket.

Remember that sauger are even more bottom oriented than walleyes are. The bottom couple of feet is the zone for saugers in this system. The heavier the current gets the tighter they are to the deck. The slower the flow the more those fish will be willing to be up a foot or two off bottom. That's why a jigging presentation works so well. You're drifting down river and that jig is gliding at a certain level and you drop it down to make sure your near the bottom and lift it back up and that's when the saugers hit.