IDNR volunteer Jeff Feasley holds a 12-pound, 7-ounce saugeye during an April 2005 survey at Evergreen Lake near Bloomington. Some of the best results for taking saugeyes occur on the dropoffs just outside the shallow spawning beds of crappies and bluegills. Photo courtesy of Mike Garthous/IDNR.

If flavorsome fried walleyes and saugeyes are high on your list, you need not travel north of our border for these toothy members of the perch family. The Prairie State offers the “Super 6” lakes where walleye fishing is better than average! It’s just a matter of knowing where, when and how.

Walleyes and saugers are native inhabitants of Lincoln Land streams and a few of Illinois’ northernmost lakes. But massive amounts of factory waste discarded during the post-World War I and II industrial booms filled our tributaries with pollution and nearly wiped out these wonderful sport fish from Illinois waters. Factories in or near Chicago were the worst offenders of polluting the Illinois River, but many other cities with major industries near the Rock, Kishwaukee, Vermillion and Wabash rivers were habitual polluters of these waters as well.

I can remember fishing the Illinois River as a young man and catching many nice walleyes and saugers. This was after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began enforcing strict water-pollution standards and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) implemented restocking programs. When fried up, these fish smelled like creosote and had a chemical flavor. Yuck! As an experiment, I placed a 3-pound Illinois River sauger in a livewell at Heritage Lake near Mackinaw. This fish had no access to food and spent five weeks in crystal-clear, contamination-free water before being filleted, breaded and fried to a golden brown. The fillets smelled up the kitchen and still had a chemical essence.

I learned two significant things from this minor research project: 1) It would be many more decades before Mother Nature could purge the pollutants from our rivers, especially the Illinois; and 2) To catch eatable walleyes, saugers or saugeyes (the walleye-sauger cross), I would need to fish Illinois’ inland lakes stocked and maintained by the IDNR.

Before detailing Illinois’ best walleye waters, let’s take a look at the closely related saugeye. As their name implies, saugeyes are a crossbreed between walleyes and saugers. They first appeared naturally in 1948 in Tennessee’s Norris Reservoir. Saugeyes or saugers can be identified by the dorsal-fin spots not found on a walleye and the lack of the white tip on the lower tail section found only on walleyes. Saugeyes grow larger than saugers, but rarely as large as walleyes.

One of the first saugeye stocking efforts nationally from a state hatchery occurred in Ohio’s Deer Creek Reservoir. My son, Monte, fishes Deer Creek regularly and occasionally catches a hefty saugeye. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has notably done more in the area of saugeye research than any other state or federal agency.

“The saugeye is more tolerant of higher turbidity levels than the pure walleye,” reports fisheries biologist Mike Garthaus of the IDNR. “They do better in Illinois lakes, especially smaller ones (lakes). Saugeyes are fertile, but we see no reproduction from them in our lakes.”

FOX CHAIN O’ LAKES
Since 1954, walleyes have been surveyed by IDNR staff in the Fox Chain O’ Lakes -- more than 7,000 acres of water in McHenry and Lake counties. Fry stockings -- “as required” -- were initiated in 1978 to supplement natural reproduction. The latest walleye stocking in “the Chain” was in 2007 when 1.1 million fry and 286,511 fingerlings (1.3 to 1.6 inches) were introduced.

New walleye possession limits for the Chain begin this year. Three walleyes from 14 to 18 inches long can be kept with no possession of fish between 18 and 24 inches. A one-fish possession limit of walleyes longer than 24 inches applies, with a total daily possession limit of no more than four walleyes.