Guided Ice Fishing In Central Illinois

Here is the new guided ice fishing information for Herman Brothers Pond Management for this winter! If we can get some good ice, this will be the very best ice fishing season on record. We spent all spring and summer creating perfect ice fishing structures and manipulating our fish populations. I have not been more excited about an ice fishing season- The prospects are very good!

We offer Fully Guided Fishing Trips on several of our intensively managed exclusive fishing lakes. These lakes are spread across Fulton, Tazewell, Knox, and Peoria counties and are home to some of the very best fish in the midwest! Some of our lakes we have completely set up and managed for the sole purpose of ice fishing. The only fishing pressure they will ever have is for just a few weeks during the winter! We have so many different lakes and ponds to ice fish and so many different species of fish to target, that we can always find a lake with hot action!

Once the lakes freeze solid we spend just about every day of the hard water season out on the Ice! We offer a variety of different Ice Fishing Packages, and for all of them we provide the necessary bait, tackle, equipment, vexilars, fish cleaning, packaging and photos! We provide an ice fishing experience that cannot be equaled anywhere: scenic ice fishing locations, trophy fish, and top of the line equipment and electronics. On top of all this we focus on teaching our clients how to become better fisherman and good stewards of the land.

Private Introduction to Ice Fishing Trip- This is our most favorite 4 hour ice fishing trip! We have several intensively managed fishing lakes that are perfect for this family trip. We provide everything and enjoy teaching you and your family the basics of ice fishing and always catch a ton of fish! We will only schedule this trip on a nice day. Cost is $75 per adult and $50 per child.

Private Ice Fishing Lesson on Your Own Lake or Pond- If you would like to learn how and where to catch fish through the ice on your own body of water, this is the trip for you! We can help you identify good ice fishing spots, teach you proper ice fishing techniques, and also show you how to read a vexilar and even clean the fish! We regularly teach folks how to fish their ponds and not only do we provide all the necessary bait and gear for the trip, but we can also help outfit you with your own set of everything as well. Cost for this trip is $250 and the amount of people you bring along does not matter.

Corporate and Custom Ice Fishing Trips- We have several large trophy fishing lakes that are intensively managed for certain species of fish and considered some of the very best fishing lakes in the United States! Trophy Rainbow Trout, Jumbo Yellow Perch, Monster Bluegill, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Hybrid Striped Bass, Crappie, Northern Pike, Tiger Muskie, Walleye, and Catfish fishing is all WORLD CLASS! Custom Ice Fishing Trips start at $75 per person, and a Fresh Fish Fry on the Ice starts at $150.

Here is a big bluegill video recap of some of our ice fishing trips from last year:


This is a fun video of ice fishing for trout at some of our lakes:

Another Otter Creek Monster Buck

Earlier in October I tried writing about a huge buck harvested at Otter Creek Preserve over near Astoria, Il, but I kept getting off subject as my thoughts and words kept drifting to the world class fishery that this place boasts! Even though we just stocked several thousand walleye, a couple hundred more muskie, and a truckload of rainbow trout just last week, this time I intend to stick much closer to the subect at hand- An absolutely huge 12 point buck just harvested by Ryan Pudik. This is his second buck this archery season well over 170 inches! With very limited hunting pressure to begin with and the fact that Otter Creek is archery hunting only, I would imagine that place is going to start filling up with deer over the next couple weeks from the surrounding areas!

Here are a couple more pics of this Central Illinois Trophy Buck:

Monster Illinois Deer Bow Kill!

My good friend Todd Staley has been renovating an old farm in Fulton County for quite awhile now! He has been working on a nice smallmouth bass pond, some wetlands, food plots, and just been transforming the farm into ideal habitat for ducks, geese, pheasants and deer.

His efforts have just recently paid off! When he was out bow hunting last thursday evening, Todd was able to harvest this monster 12 pointer! The deer gave him a perfect 20 yard shot from his stand and Todd was fortunate to not have seen this deer coming from the standing corn or Buck Fever would have for sure kicked in! Let me just say it is much harder to shoot straight when your heart is literally pounding out of your chest. Its much easier to harvest a buck when you dont have time to think, but just to react.

Here are some more pictures of this buck of a lifetime:

Peak of the Rut.....Chicago Shopping!

Well, its the peak of the whitetail deer rut, geese and ducks are flying, pheasants and quail are in season, and the fish are actually still biting pretty aggressively...........and this weekend I was in Chicago shopping!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dont get me wrong, I had a great time away from the kids and work (Brook will read this blog post eventually) but no matter how much we needed a weekend away from the kids (for the first time in 2 years) Its just hard to be in Chicago, and shopping to boot.

Grandma and Grandpa took the kids to Fun City in Iowa on Thursday afternoon so Brook and I booked a last minute hotel on priceline.com and stayed at the 4 star Hyatt Lodge for $60 that night. I had to work South of Chicago on Friday anyways, so we just made a weekend out of it.

Friday morning well before rush hour traffic I headed over to Art Van Barens new pond near Beecher, IL. We hooked up a vertex air one plus aeration system and then formulated a gameplan to turn this 1/2 acre pond into the very best backyard fishin' hole imaginable. A few weeks earlier we stocked 100 lbs of feed trained largemouth bass, and thousands of fathead minnows and golden shiners. With a feeding program in place for next season and a properly designed pond with aeration system, I expect great things from this pond by the end of 2010! By the time the pond is exactly 1 year old, he is going to have a 2.5 lb average on these genetically superior LMB!!!!

I didnt really want to rush back to the mall, so we spent a couple hours checking out a couple other ponds, Art's factory (which is AMAZING!), and even did a little fishing. Then after lunch I really needed to head back up north to the windy city. I just could not imagine living anywhere near there- there are just people and traffic everywhere.

So the next 24 hours really werent that bad, but boy was I glad to be on the road headed back towards God's country with a deep dish giordonno's chicago pizza and a 6-pack of cinnabons Saturday evening. The only good thing about Chicago is the food!!!