may 12th may 2010 chapter mtg— bill bennett from the front ... · dave lukac - at large page 2...

M A Y 2 0 1 0

U P C O M I N G

E V E N T S

May 12th

Chapter Mtg—

Bill Bennett

FRV IS “OFF”

FOR THE

SUMMER...NO

CHAPTER

MEETINGS

UNTIL AUGUST

What’s inside

May Mtg 2

Spring Chal-lunger Tourna-ment Recap

3

Challunge Recap continued (w/standings)

4

Member Photos 6

Planning a fishing trip w/your kids

7

IMA Meeting 5

From The Front Deck Change is hard for most of us, especially musky fishermen; as we are as stub-born as the day is long! Well, sometimes change can be a good thing. After 14 consecutive years of hosting the Spring musky tournament on Channel Lake, we took a leap of faith and moved the entire venue to the most southern lake on the Chain-Pistakee Lake. Were we concerned? You bet!! Lot’s of new vari-ables were thrown at us with this move. Did we make a good decision? Will the move hurt our numbers? What about the navigation issues? How will the launch go? All of these things had my head spinning! Well our 15th Annual Spring Challunge on the Chain was held at Famous Freddie’s on Saturday April 24th and things went very smoothly! Like the father of the bride, I was nervous before the event. Once the wheels were set in motion, I just watched every-thing unfold and hope that all our work on the front end paid off! Well it did!! The tournament went off without a hitch, the food and facilities were awesome

and to top it off this years Spring Challunge set a record with 22 muskies caught between 120 anglers (one team was a no show). Lake levels were well below flood stage this spring which allowed us to run our boats at full speed! Once again, the weatherman was wrong! Thunderstorms were predicted all day long but as luck would have it, only a few cloudbursts occurred, and for the most part anglers fished with rain-free, cloudy & foggy conditions most of the day. The continued musky stocking on the Chain was never more obvious than by taking a quick glance at the leader board at the days end. The top two teams tripled and the 3rd place team doubled!! This is a testament to the quality of the musky fishery on the Fox Chain. The Chain gets it’s share of bashing & bad press for it’s excessive boat traffic, congestion and overall craziness! But for those of us who fish this body of water with regularity we know what the future holds for muskies and the future is bright! Congratulations to 1st place winners Dave Dilley & Dave He-beda who TRIPLED as well as the 2nd place team of Joe & Dave Klop who also tripled. The 3rd place team of David and Emily McParlane doubled up with two nice muskies all caught on surface baits!! More tourney info can be found inside this month’s newsletter. Many thanks to all of the anglers who partici-pated, I hope you all had a great time and will come back to fish this event this coming October 30th! I would also like to personally thank all of the FRV members for their time & efforts to help work this tour-nament, we couldn’t have done it without all of your help! Thanks also to Mark Lamont, Kevin & Trevor Bushnick and Mike Piorkowski for arriving in the pre-dawn hours to assist with check-ins, and the tourna-ment startI These guys didn’t even fish the event but drove up to help anyway!! We hope we will see all of you back for our Fall Challunge at Famous Freddie’s on Pistakee Lake! Thanks also to the folks at Ben Watts Marina for doing an outstanding job with the launching and parking!! Our upcoming May 12th speaker will be Bill Bennett who will be covering the in’s & outs of fishing muskies in Indiana. We will have an all you can eat buffet before the club meeting. Food will be served at 6:00PM and the cost is $12.00/adults. FYI, the May 12th meeting is the last monthly club meeting before we break for the summer. Our monthly meetings will resume on Wednesday August 11th and will be held at the Dundee Park District Pool. This meeting is our pool demo night!! It usually draws 100+ people to see how the baits run and purchase baits from the many vendors who bring their products to this meeting! Hopefully I will see many of you at some of the Youth outings scheduled in June including the camp out at McGraw’s! In the meantime, hope your summer is filled with lot’s of outdoor activities with friends and family and hopefully you’ll be catching & releasing lots of huge muskies!! You can keep up with current club activi-ties during “summer recess” by checking in frequently to our website at www.frvmuskie.com Until next month….get out & fish!

Rich Gallagher

G E N E R A L M E E T I N G S

7:00 PM SCHAUMBURG GOLF

CLUB/CHANDLER’S CHOPHOUSE 401 N. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

(847) 885-9009

B O A R D M E E T I N G S 7:00 PM. Cabelas, on Monday follow-

ing the General meeting. All mem-

bers are welcome to attend.

OFFICERS

Pres Rich Gallagher 847-741-9771 VP Dan Koniewicz Sec. Steve Crook Treas. Steve Kroll RVP Dave VanDoorn

2010 BOARD MEMBERS

Frank Lucido - Membership Director 847-559-8300 Mike Zaborowski - Youth Director 630-458-1861 Mark Lamont - Newsletter 847-741-4766 Kevin Bushnick - Youth Director Ken Miller - Contests Todd Minor - Speakers Dan Lamkin - Show Coordinator John Deutinger - Website Jim Ziebka - Outings Director Ken Sponseller - Membership Dir. Mike Piorkowski - General Mtgs Mark Rue - General Mtgs Tony Hardin - Merchandise Director Hugh Flack - At Large Pete Barber - IMA Director Beau Farius - At Large 630-461-0404 Dave Lukac - At Large

W W W . F R V M U S K I E . C O M

FRV MUSKIES INC. P A G E 2 M A Y 2 0 1 0

MAY MEETING

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12th ~ SCHAUMBURG GOLF CLUB/CHANDLERS CHOPHOUSE ~ It’s our last chapter meeting before we take a break for the summer! May is a fantastic time to be out on lo-cal waters in the Midwest. It’s that last month or so before our lakes get really crowded with anglers and pleasure boaters. So that’s why you should be on the water RIGHT NOW if possible. And you don’t have to drive too far. A well-known alternative to fishing NE IL this time of year is hopping right across the border to our east and hitting the lakes of Indiana! It’s not that far of a drive, and many of the Indiana lakes can be pretty hot this time of year. As luck would have it, our May guest speaker happens to be Bill Bennett from Hoosier Heartland Guide Ser-vice! Bill has been Musky fishing for 25 years and his presentation is called Fishing in the Indiana Heartland. Bill will be talking Indiana muskies from ice-out to ice-up and the many tactics that he uses to catch them. Bill is also a board member of the Webster Lake Musky Club which is the local Muskies Inc. Chapter in that area. For more information about Mr. Bennett, please visit Bill's site at: http://www.hoosierheartlandguideservice.4t.com/ As always, dinner starts at 6 p.m., meeting starts at 7. Please visit the web-site for more details and please contact Rich Gallagher if you plan on meet-

TALK TO US! Want to contact anyone on the FRV Board of Directors? Please send an email to: [email protected]

WANT A COPY OF YOUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER IN ELECTRONIC VERSION ONLY? Please return the letter/survey you received in the mail last week, or let us know your preference via the web-site. Do you have any other feedback about this? Let us know your thoughts. Thanks!



2010 Spring Challunge on the Chain Re-cap (by Rich Gallagher, President Fox River Valley Chapter)

The alarm sounded at 2:30AM but I was already awake. Not able to get much sleep the night before the 2010 Spring “Challunge on the Chain” musky tournament, I slid out of bed and began gathering the layers of clothing I’d need for the day ahead of me. The forecast was not good. Thunderstorms and winds 10-15 out of the SSE were forecasted for the day with a high of 52°. “Typical weather forecast for our musky tournament”, I thought to myself. As I began getting dressed, the whole house shook as I heard the roar of wind & rain begin slamming the roof. “You gotta be kidding me” I said as I looked outside to see sheets of horizontal rain coming down monsoon style. “Oh this will be wonderful for our walk-in business” I thought. “Nothing like torrential rains to help bolster sagging tournament sign-ups”. Weather pending, some years we get as many at 15 teams that sign up the morning of our tournament! By the time I pulled out of the driveway at 3:30 AM the rain had stopped and it actually felt warm outside. “Maybe we’ll get lucky this year”, I thought; and the weather won’t be a deciding factor as to whether or not we catch fish. This year’s tournament was being held on the southern part of the Fox Chain at Famous Freddie’s on Pistakee Lake. After 14 consecutive spring tournaments being held on Channel Lake, this was a huge change of all of us. Not only were we hosting this at a new venue, but many of us were not familiar with any of the lakes south of Petite! Being out on Pistakee was like fishing an entirely new body of water. As we pulled into Ben Watts Marina we were greeted by Bob Nordmeyer and his staff who were ready & waiting to assist tournament anglers with the launching & parking of trucks & trailers. They even arranged to have shuttle buses take anglers from tournament HQ back to their rigs at days end!! This was also new for many of us, as in years past tournament anglers came from many different launches all over the Chain. The launch went smoothly as anglers & their partners motored over to Famous Freddie’s to dock their boats. Docking accommodations were great as there were slips to accommodate up to 130 boats. FRV directors Mark Lamont, Mike Piorkowski and FRV member Chris vonAllmen were dockside to assist with the numerical departure as the 60 teams rolled out into the fog & clouds hovering over the Chain O’ Lakes. The morning brought several small cloudbursts followed by a drenching downpour but no lightning or thunder occurred as in years past. The temperatures shot up to near 60° and by late morning, the rains had stopped. Anglers began peeling off their layers of raingear as the temps increased. The water temps on the Chain were running any-where from 57°-60° the day of the tournament and the Muskies were just finishing up their spawn. Most of the teams were fishing “skinny water” looking for active fish in the shallow muddy bays found all over the Chain. Glide baits, twitch baits and even surface baits were the ticket to getting on the leader board! Top 5 Places: The 1st place team of Dave Dilley and Dave Hebeda tripled up with a 35.5”, 38” and a 36.25” muskie. These fish were caught on Phantoms and Rattle Traps. “The 36.25” musky came literally on the last spot, last cast of the day” said 1st place winner Dave Hebeda. “Dave & I knew we needed one more fish to seal the deal and as luck would have it we scored” said partner Dave Dilley. The duo’s 3 fish earned them 1st place honors and a 1st place paycheck! In 2nd place, right behind Dilley & Hebeda, was team #38 Joe & Dave Klop. This team had great success working small Zara Spooks around Spring Lake’s shallow water shorelines! The Klop’s tripled up with muskies of 35”, 39” and 34.25” just missing out on 1st place by a mere 1.5 points. 3rd place honors went to the father/daughter team of David & Emily McParlane. David boated two fish of 41” and 32.75”. Both fish came on a Dancin’ Raider top water bait made by Joe Bucher. Both fish were caught on Lake Marie. 4th place honors and Big Fish winners were Thomas Curtis and Mike Sibert who caught their fish on Petite Lake on a Phantom glide bait. 5th place honors were taken by the perennial favorite father & son team of Russ & Chris Schaller. Both of their muskies were caught on Lake Marie on a Rapala Subwalker and a Bagley Bang O lure. At the conclusion of the tournament, as the anglers trailered their boats home in the darkness, the 2010 Spring Chal-lunge on the Chain would be one for the history books. It set a record with 24 muskies caught & released in our tour-nament (two fish were short and didn’t measure, one caught by Veronica Berg and the other caught by

“2010 Spring Challunge…” continued on next page

FRV MUSKIES INC. M A Y 2 0 1 0 P A G E 4


Place Boat # Name 1 Name 2 Tournament

Points # of Fish Total Inches Lake

1 41 Dave Hebeda Dave Dilley 31.75 3 109.75 Channel

2 38 David Klop Joseph Klop 30.25 3 108.25 Spring

3 40 David McParlane Emily McParlane 21.75 2 73.75 Petite

4 29 Thomas Curtis Mike Sibert 17 1 43 Petite

5 18 Russ Schaller Chris Schaller 16 2 68 Marie

6 12 Tom Runyard Luke Armitage 13.5 2 65.5 Channel

6 37 Frank Bottiglieri Rich Gallagher 13.5 1 39.5 Petite

8 31 Robert Matusek Bill Matusek 12.5 1 38.5 Petite

9 53 Nick Camaratta Jim Stella 12 1 38 Channel

10 62 Ian Woodhouse Jim Teafoe 11.5 1 37.5 Marie

11 15 Ken Miller Dan Koniewicz 11 1 37 Marie

12 2 Joe Tierno Chuck Wiesneth 10 1 36 Bluff

13 8 Phil Gutmann Sam Wilson 8 1 34 Marie

14 61 Tom Holakovski Joe Holakovski 7 1 33 Gerallyn

15 39 Michael Winther Joel Michel 5 1 31 Marie

Scott Waligurski who just missed the 30” minimum with a nice fat 29 5/8” musky caught on a Phantom Glide Bait). 22 fish over 30” were registered and that would set a record in the 15 year history of the Challunge as the most fish caught & released in a single Challunge tournament! This is a true testament that C, P, R is alive and well on the Fox Chain. FRV will also host our annual Fall “Challunge on the Chain” on Saturday October 30th 2010. We will be headquartered once again out of Famous Freddie’s on Pistakee Lake. For more information, or to register for the Fall “Challunge on the Chain”, visit our website at www.frvmuskie.com

FINAL STANDINGS ~ SPRING 2010 TOURNAMENT

Continued from previous page….(2010 Spring Challunge on the Chain Re-cap)

Left: MC Chauncey Niziol stands with 1st place winners Dave Hebeda (ctr) and Dave Dilley (right). Right: 4th place winner Tom Curtis is shown with his 43 inch “Big Fish” win-ner. Tom caught this beautiful fish on Petite Lake



APRIL IMA MEETING SUMMARY (contributed by Todd Minor) The IMA held it's second quarterly meeting on April 3rd at the Pokanoka Cafe at Shabbona Lake State Park. FRV was represented by two of it's delegates; Ken Sponseller and Todd Minor. At the meeting we discussed a few of the IDNR needs and their costs. The first item was a need for three dissolved oxygen meters. For our club's inter-est, one of them is for the northern IL. lakes including the Fox Chain. They are very expensive at over one thou-sand dollars apiece. The IMA is still discussing funding on these meters. The second item was for 3-6 digital scales. Two will be purchased through donations to the IMA and funding is still being sought for the rest. The pond nets at the Jake Wolfe hatchery are in need of repair and the cost is one thousand dollars. The IMTT(Illinois Muskie Tournament Trail) will be coming up for the funding for that. The last item was “porcupine balls” for Kinkaid lake. Porcupine balls are artificial fish-holding structures that are about three feet in diameter and made of pvc pipe. Most of the delegates questioned the need for them and president Ray Thompson has made inquiries for a more thorough explanation. The next thing discussed were special projects. Denny Sands from Shabbona Lake discussed with us the possible solutions to keep the muskies in the lake or from getting too far downstream after they go over the dam. The first option, which was not feasible, is a permanent barrier at the dam... similar to what Lake Kinkaid has. The minimum cost would be one hundred thousand dollars (yep that is 100,000) because of the engineering costs involved. The other proposal was much cheaper and very possible; and that is a downstream barrier. The cost for this would be somewhere around ten to fifteen thousand dollars. The only way the DNR will even consider it is if they have writ-ten agreement from a few fishing clubs that it will be maintained for debris so that the dam structure will not be compromised during flood conditions. The clubs agreed and right now there is six thousand dollars pledged to-wards this project. It is estimated that Shabbona loses at least one fish per acre per year based on the number of muskies have been recovered downstream in past seasons. The barrier should pay for itself easily in a few years time! Don Dubin gave a presentation on musky survival. There was a study done in Wisconsin that has shown musky stocking survival is 20% for a fish stocked in the fall vs. 80% for a musky that is over wintered and stocked in the spring. The fish are only one inch longer but they are twice as heavy. The downside is the cost for keeping them through the winter. That info has been forwarded to the IDNR for consideration. There have been some reports about heavy musky escapement over the dam at lake Mingo and shore fisherman leaving them on shore after being caught. This information has also been forwarded to the IDNR. The next IMA quarterly meeting will be held at Heideke Lake in the Goose lake Prairie Museum on July 24th at 10am. Please check our website for upcoming details.

PETER J. BARBER & Associates, Inc.

CPA & Consultants

Family & Estate Tax Planning & Preparation Business Accounting & Taxes

(847) 726-7267

LAX REPRODUCTIONS Rick Lax

Website: laxreproductions.com

Bus Phone: 715-547-3710 Cell Phone: 715-490-3710

Email [email protected]



Todd Minor 37.5 Todd minor and son Andrew with 37.5

Jim Galati’s 33 inch Lake Shelbyville fish.

Jim Ziebka sets the steel to a hard fighting...stick! Another denizen of the Shelbyville Deep!

FRV member Tim Crews with another inciden-tal catch while at the Shelbyville outing… a nice shad! See it? It’s right there hanging off the hook under the bait. Good job Tim!



Planning a Fishing Trip with your Kids! Contributed by Todd Minor The last article I wrote for the newsletter detailed the first rod and reel I bought for my children and the reasons why. Another important thing to consider is where to take them fishing, namely the family vacation. Growing up, I always looked forward to spending a week up north fishing. When I was five years old when my parents took me and my brother to North Long Lake in Minnesota. I was hooked ever since! I too wanted to share this experience with my own children. I put a lot of thought into where to take my kids to make the most of it for them, myself and my entire family. Not all lakes are kid friendly and the same can be said for resorts as well. The first thing I thought about was the fishing. Yes, the lake needed to contain muskies, but it also needed to contain a good fishable popu-lation of something else. My kids were not much for bobbers and live bait, they liked to throw lures. This meant I should find a lake that has muskies and was a good action lake for species like pike and bass. Daytime fishing will be the norm with kids… and in 3-5 hour segments. I typically take them out a few hours in the morning and then the same in the evening. Because we are daytime fishing, I like a stained lake for more consistent action and they seem a little less dependant on weather conditions. Another thing that is important is a beach with a gradual slope with no drop-offs. I think kids love water more than the fish do! I bring a few minnow buckets and some butterfly nets and the kids will catch all kinds of water critters. It really makes a nice break for them in the mid-dle of the day. Resort location is important too. You do not want to take your younger kids out in rough water. Pick a smaller lake or a location on a bigger lake that gives you the option to be out of the elements when needed. Lure selections for kids is fairly easy. I stick with a topwater (kids love them!) like a Heddon Torpedo or a Zara Spook with prop blades in weedy areas… or a minnow-bait like a floating Rattle Trap, Smithwick or a Rapala. Kids won't make a retrieve transition fast enough in weedy areas for anything but a topwater… and a lure free of weeds is what they need. If the weeds are sparse or you’re around rocks, go with the minnow-bait. As far as a minnow-bait color, I follow the usual rule of thumb. Clear water… match the hatch with natural forage colors. But when on stained water… clown rules! I hope I have given you some great tips for a fun family vacation. My vacation searches took me many times to the Turtle Flambeau Flowage and Lake Vermillion. I found places like DeadHorse Lodge, Glenwood Lodge and Life of Riley Resort; places that were tucked away from the big open water… yet offered everything I needed. There are many resort options as well as considerations you have beyond the ones I have mentioned. Now get out there and find a good one for you and your family, and enjoy your summer vacation!

Chapter Meetings

5/12/09 Wednesday Bill Bennett Indiana Musky Lakes 8/04/10 Wednesday Pool Demo Dundee Pool 9/13/10 Wednesday Steve Krueger IDNR night 10/13/10 Wednesday Russ Schaller NE IL Musky Lakes 11/10/10 Wednesday Family Night Family Night 12/08/10 Wednesday Home Brew, lure swap & canned food drive

Special Events

6/5/10 Saturday NISRA Outing on Bangs Lake 6/6/10 Sunday Spring Youth Merit Badge Outing 6/6/20 Sunday Boating & Fishing safety class at Max McGraw’s 6/14/10 Monday Youth Musky Hunt at Max McGraw’s 8/07/10 Saturday 2010 Bartlett Kids Fishing Derby 8/15/10 Sunday Special Needs Outing at Max McGraw’s 10/23/10 Saturday Musky clinic at Max McGraw’s 10/30/10 Saturday FRV Fall Challunge on the Chain

FRV CALENDAR

Fox River Valley Chapter P.O. Box 7613 Algonquin, IL 60102

FIRST CLASS US Postage PAID

Permit No. 320 Palatine P&DC IL

Interested in sponsorship for a tourna-ment or advertising in a newsletter? Please contact the FRV Board members via email at:

[email protected]

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may 12th may 2010 chapter mtg— bill bennett from the front ... · dave lukac - at large page 2...

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