By Luke Estel

If you are an outdoorsman, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Illinois?

The number one answer from people not living in my home state is “big bucks.” That is most defiantly true as we have a great deer population and some true giants running around our woods and fields.

What out of staters do not think about is the bass fishing.

This is also true as we do not have very large lakes and the fishing is, what I would describe, as ok. This is what makes Illinois fishermen so competitive when some of us go outside this state to compete.

We are grinders.

Most of us grew up fishing shallow where flipping and throwing a spinnerbait are the norm.

What sets us apart from most other states is the amount of fish we have in our lakes. Therefore it takes way more patience than most anglers are willing to give.

To give the most common example is the bite to fish catch ratio. Unlike other lakes in the surrounding states, and even down south, we just do not get that many bites.

Most tournaments are decided when one or two anglers actually catches a limit in a tournament. Yes, I said a limit. Think about going all day praying for five bites. Not fifty, not twenty, five!

You have to be on your game to land every fish that bites. Yes, there are tournaments where we cull and have one of those special days but for the most part, catching a limit is a feat in itself.

When I started branching out fishing lakes like Kentucky or Guntersville, it shocked me. My problem was there were so many fish, it was hard to leave a spot to go find bigger ones because I was actually catching so many fish.

We never have that problem around here. That is why anglers in this state seem to shine when they branch out and fish other lakes.

Case in point, Brennon McCord recently won the BLF All American.

He worked one small stretch of bank to take home first place. That doesn’t surprise me at all. He is a grinder.

That’s how he grew up fishing and that’s what helped him win.

I myself have had similar success just grinding it out. A few years ago on the Red River I fished one small area for three days getting just a few bites each day. My bite to fish catching ratio was 14 bites and boated 13 keepers.

Basically, if you get a bite, you better put him in the boat.

Another thing that most of us around here use, are jon boats. Yep, we are a jon boat state.

Who needs a big glass boat when you can fish every lake in the state out of a piece of aluminum?

Put us in a nice glass boat and you would have thought we won the lottery.

Now, I am not taking away from all the other great anglers in the rest of the states.

Trust me, if and when I move, it will be south where the fishing is much better.

It is just that we have to work a lot harder for that “bite” than most states, which is why we call ourselves grinders.