Truth be known, you are the main variable in the concept of "limited access." In many cases, getting out there on the ice simply requires written permission. Sometimes there's a small access fee, or a covenant that the property owner must accompany you. There is at least one of these waters within an hour's drive anywhere in Illinois' ice-fishing country. If you're a serious bucketeer, you will find a way to get out on this private ice that is usually as good as, or better than, other waters with public access described in the rest of this article.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER
Although our western border still offers the potential for buckets full of fish, piscatory habitats along the Mississippi River in pools 12, 13 and 14 are profoundly threatened by siltation caused by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' dredging to maintain a 9-foot channel for commercial barge traffic.

Winter fishing here used to be primarily a backwater bite. However, siltation has reduced once productive areas like Fishtrap on Pool 12 and Miller's Lake on Pool 13 north of Savanna from fisheries covering hundreds of acres to niches with less than 20 acres of fish-producing habitat.

The key to productive winter fishing on the Mississippi is targeting areas on or near the main channel. On Pool 12, woody cover in the second cut on the Iowa side below the Julien Dubuque Bridge has developed into quite a crappie hotspot over the past several years. Probably the most consistently productive area is near the cement plant around the pilings between the little island and the main channel.

Backwaters just west of Galena like Fishtrap and Kehough sloughs and Sunfish Lake still produce when the river levels are up a little bit. But it's tough to find water that is both high and clear, so keep poking holes. When you can see that L'il Cecil a foot below the surface over at least a couple feet of water -- preferably near wood -- you have an excellent chance to ice a nice mixed bag of panfish.

A combination of snow-making efforts and close proximity to the main channel has made ice south of Galena at the base of Chestnut Mountain ski area a hotspot for years. Take a little spinning outfit rigged with a No. 2 Jigging Rapala, because the standard "stick and string" used by ice-anglers for generations over on the Mississippi won't get you down to where the fish are hiding.

Pool 13 covers over 30,000 acres. There used to be dozens of spots worth fishing. Now there are just a couple. Try north of the Sabula boat ramp near the islands, on the ice near the sewer plant at Savanna and the deep hole at Spring Lake between Savanna and Thomson. They are all worth probing.

Just a few miles south of here in the tailwaters of the dam that separates pools 13 and 14 is a place called the "perch hole" where folks have been icing fish since I was a kid 50 years ago. It still yields fish today, but not too far away is a fat lady getting ready to sing.