Sitting in an anchored boat 15 feet from a violently overflowing cofferdam on a rainy winter night is not my idea of the idyllic Illinois fishing experience. But this story isn’t about barefoot boys, poles propped between toes, snoozing on the banks of sun-kissed streams. This is about the Rock River, particularly the fast-flowing stretch of the Rock that passes through the town of Oregon, Illinois. It’s the stretch you see as you cross the Route 64 bridge on your way to Galena or Mississippi Palisades State Park. And this is also about Moe Kielsmeier, co-owner with his wife Nancy of Moe’s Bait Shop, which sits hard against the Rock just upstream from the bridge.
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Moe was disappointed with the fishing that night, but I was jubilant–the five walleyes I caught, although only in the one-pound range, happened to be the only walleyes I have ever caught anywhere within a 200-mile radius of Chicago. The Fox, Kankakee, and Illinois rivers get a lot of fanfare for the quality of their walleye fishing, but on the few occasions I tried these rivers I caught only the walleye’s low-rent relative, the sauger. Anglers on those rivers were typically evasive about the locations of the best walleye lairs, while Moe gleefully leaks the secrets of the Rock. “That’s the favorite hole of one of my buddies,” he announced at one point. “He’d kill me if he knew I told you about it.” About another spot he said, “That’s where the turbine used to be. There’s a deep pocket down there filled with really big flathead catfish.”
Moe initially looks to be one of those guys who doesn’t take a lot of guff–a big, bearded, taciturn man turning to face you, planting his hands on the counter, and furrowing his brow. You want to make your request and not mispronounce the name of whatever lure or rig you remember being mentioned in the Tribune or Sun-Times fishing reports. But confront him with any question–What’s biting? Where are they hitting? What kind of ducks are those swimming around under the bridge?–and Moe’s off and running. He loves to talk.
Meanwhile Paladino and his staff were in Oregon electroshocking walleye (which stuns but doesn’t kill the fish) and hoop netting in several nearby sections of the Rock. The DOC was hoping to net a lot of mature female walleyes so they could strip their eggs. Walleyes don’t naturally spawn in most Illinois lakes and rivers, so the DOC collects eggs from the few Illinois waters where they do and hatches them in nurseries to stock elsewhere.
Moe would also like to start a canoe livery someday. The Rock River has a drop of three to five feet per mile, as opposed to the one-foot-a-mile drop typical of most Illinois rivers, and its riffles and quiet eddies alternate with stretches of white water, making it perfect for canoeists, says Moe. Unlike, say, the Fox River, which just sort of moseys along, the Rock River sings.
For more information on the Oregon and other places along the Black Hawk Trail, see the Visitors’ Guide in this issue.
