Photo by Pete Maina

Illinois has over 25 public lakes that the Esox king calls home, with muskies also swimming in a number of private impoundments and several rivers. The status of this fishery is excellent and getting better every day, so much so that the state record could fall again before year's end.

Several lakes hold the perpetual propensity for profound piscator production. Shelbyville, Spring, Shabbona, Otter and Kinkaid are all capable of generating multiple heart attacks in your boat when a 50-incher comes cruising by. Several more waters have fish very close to the 50-inch mark, with mid-40s fish swimming in waters all over the Land of Lincoln.

Illinois' biggest concentration of public muskie waters is in the area surrounding Peoria County, with more than a half-dozen "toother" lakes within a half-hour's drive from each other, and less than three hours' drive from any point in our state.

We have small lakes less than 100 acres that can be effectively probed in a couple of hours, and vast waters like Shelbyville that can take days to explore. Kinkaid Lake falls between these two parameters, and is at its very best when we're counting down the shopping days until Christmas, and a couple months after the new year begins when ice still covers much of Illinois north of Springfield.

Ironically, the cold-weather periods are prime time for muskies on the Rock River from the state line south to Sterling-Rock Falls. Most Rock River muskies are hooked by anglers chasing walleyes within a mile from dams at Rockton, Rockford and Oregon. This fishery exists courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, which stocked muskies in Lake Koshkonong about 13 years ago. There are only several low-head dams to prevent escape from Wisconsin and these fish thrilling Illinois anglers.

Land of Cheese muskies aren't the only representatives of this species with a ramblin' nature, with barrier nets now in place on waters like Pierce Lake in Winnebago County to keep these predators from flying the coop.

A half-dozen private lakes, primarily in northern Illinois, have been stocked with muskies large enough to establish state-record marks like the one that came from Lake Summerset on the Winnebago/Stephenson county line a few years ago. Because access to these lakes is limited to property owners and their guests, there is no point in providing further information on these waters beyond mentioning the fact that bona fide wallhangers are swimming in at least four of these developments.

The most recent data available from the statewide Muskie Creel Survey Project released last October, which was a joint effort between the Illini Muskie Alliance and the Illinois DNR, chronicles muskies caught in 49 different areas "as well as some unidentified areas" between inception of the project in 1987 and the end of 2004.

Both pure and hybrid muskies are found in the Prairie State, originating from several different genetic strains. Some have come from different states, either intentionally like fish procured from Pennsylvania, or covertly like the fish that sneaked out of Wisconsin's Lake Koshkonong after a heavy spring rain.