Always full of surprises
River likely yields 1st modern muskie; pink flamingos, too
Now comes the mystery of a muskie and pink flamingos on the Chicago River.
I’m pretty sure Bob Glowacki caught the first modern muskie on the Chicago River. He was fishing themain stem downtown Sunday with Jeff Nolan when he latched into it.
‘‘ I flipped [ a crankbait] toward pilings,’’ Glowacki said. ‘‘ There was a real light tap. It came in easy, not a huge battle. I was like, ‘ What the heck?’ It was cool. I thought Jeff was going over.’’
Nolan thought he was on Facebook Live, but there was a malfunction. There are only photos of the 32- inch fish in the net. It was thrashing around, and they wanted to release it quickly. It swam away with vigor.
I emailed a photo and explanation to veteran muskie fisherman/ advocate Steve Statland, Illinois fisheries chief Dan Stephenson and Lake Michigan Program head Vic Santucci.
‘‘ It would be nice to see more to confirm,’’ Santucci summed up. ‘‘ We have seen some strange northern- pike color patterns in the Chicago and Calumet rivers in the past.’’
‘‘ It’s the first [ muskie] I caught,’’ Glowacki said. ‘‘ I’ve caught lots of northern pike. At first I thought it was a trout or a brown. Then I said, ‘ You better grab the net.’ ’’
Nolan said it was caught on 30- pound braid with an 8- pound fluorocarbon leader.
‘‘ I couldn’t believe it,’’ said Nolan, who is quite active on the river system.
Nolan and Glowacki left around 6 a. m. from the Daley Launch at Western Avenue and the Sanitary and Ship Canal.
‘‘ Bob had a day off from daddy duty,’’ Nolan said.
With his river experience, Nolan has adjusted to changing conditions downtown. More traffic ( motorized and paddlers) combined with the no- wake brought out his creativity.
‘‘ I used to waste all that no- wake time down there,’’ he said. ‘‘ Then I started trolling. It’s no- wake anyway, so I put a few rod holders on the boat and troll.’’
Nolan uses crankbaits that go down about 5 to 7 feet and focuses on water outflows, oxygenated areas that hold the most fish. It turned out to be effective for largemouth bass, crappie, white bass and a few smallmouth bass. The muskie was a surprise.
Something is going on with muskies downtown. Several people I trust have reported muskies at Burnham Harbor. On April 8, Greg Remec caught a muskie near the Adler Planetarium ( Sun- Times, April 19).
The pink flamingos popping up at pilings along the river are more easily explained. Nolan has been on a mission with flamingos. It’s not quite the civic artistry of ‘‘ Cows on Parade’’ in 1999, but ‘‘ Flamingos Piling On’’ is interesting enough to be much photographed by visitors.
You never know on the Chicago River.
Wild things
I think there were more fireflies this summer, and I ended up in an interesting exchange with an academician. I would love to know the thoughts of other firefly watchers.
Stray cast
More and more, Joe Maddon reminds me of a rock bass: good initial surge, then blah.