Fulton County Recreation, Camping, and Fishing Tournaments

I am really excited to have the opportunity to work with the Illinois DNR on some of the lakes out at Fulton County Camping and Recreation Area. They have a muskie stocking program going and have rehabbed one of the main lakes. Folks, the fishing is already good here! Now we are coming up with a plan to enhance the bluegill fishing in Lake 3.5 and introduce smallmouth and walleye and yellow perch into Red Barn Lake. Its a longterm plan with the first stockings not until the lake is ready, so dont expect to pay the $5 entry fee into the park and start catching smallmouth right away. BUT, you can come on out and fish the lakes and help get them ready for the canadian themed goal...

If you are ever driving through St.David from Canton and see this sign, you should follow it and stop in. This place really is one of Fulton Counties best kept secrets. They offer seasonal camping as well as daily camping and fishing.


So anyhow they are hosting several bass fishing tournaments this spring, that will be a blast fishing with a nice payout to the winners. As of right now they are paying back 100% of the entry fee to the winners. The first tournament is scheduled for April 127th at 6:00 am till 12:30. Cost to enter is $5 daily fee to fish at the park, $20 entry fee to the tournament and $5 optional big bass contest.

They have two other tournaments scheduled for May 19th at 5:30 am and June 15th at 5 am. If you want my advice I would fish lake 4 for the biggest bass. They are hard to catch though cause they are fat and happy and have plenty of small bluegill to forage on at will so you will have to keep that in mind when coming up with a game plan for them...

Another cool feature we are helping the park create is a Fish Feeding Zone for guests to feed the fish. This designated area will be closed to fishing, but open for fish viewing and feeding! Fish food will be available at the park office or you can simply bring leftover items you think the fish might like to eat...(or for alot of fun bring a bucket of small bluegills and crappies to feed the fish!) I have a hunch this will be a very fun and popular activity at the park this summer....

So anyhow if your looking for a place to take some kids of grandkids camping for the night with a nice campfire and marshmallows or just looking for a place to get away from the city and do some fishing, this is the place. Definitely get out and check out the park, there are about 80 acres of water here to explore!!

Jumbo Yellow Perch and Such

Jumbo Yellow Perch...Did you know we are raising some pretty stinkin huge jumbo yellow perch right here in central Illinois! I'm talking perch so big that I am starting to check in on the state record...Back in 1974 Joseph Grega caught a 2 lb 9 ounce fish that record still stands today, not for too much longer Joseph, we are gonna get ya...I have a buddy over in Ligonier, Indiana last year catch the unofficial Indiana state record perch from his 1/3 acre pond following this same recipe...


Anyhow, why I have perch on my mind is because I just drove a load of trophy jumbo yellow perch to a client of mine down in Burlington, North Carolina. These are some of the most prized perch in all of North America and Doc G wanted to give em a go with his intensively managed smallmouth and largemouth ponds. Yep he has a world class smallmouth pond way down in North Carolina...(BTW, I also have friends and clients with smallmouth in Arizona and Texas)...

So my wife and kids are down in Gulf Shores, Alabama for spring break along with pretty much all of the wives and kids of everyone I am related to...





They are having a blast playing and relaxing at the beach while I am having a blast working every waking moment that they are gone. Had I not taken this friday night off to go shopping at Bass Pro Shops with my brother, I would have put in 130 hrs of work out of 168 total hrs of my family being gone....Instead I only was able to get in 12 hrs today so my total will be 122 hrs...

So Easter Sunday my family was gone so me and my brothers spent the weekend celebrating the resurrection of Christ by camping out at the lake and planting trees. We planted 600 and then went fishing. Typically we spend Easter Sunday in church, but with the fam gone we spent this year outside enjoying creation and the SON was shining!







We drilled 600 holes for the trees...Three rows of hybrid willows and hybrid poplars followed by 3 rows of norway spruce. This is both a short term and longterm visual barrier from the road...



Monday I was stuck in the office all day designing docks, zip lines, organizing fish stockings, and such...Since my family was gone I just worked till I could work no longer and crashed...you read right zip lines, we are putting in several really cool ziplines for fun rides over the water and even into the water...If you can't tell, if you have a hairbrained or not normal idea for fun, just come to us and we will figure out how to pull it off...

Tuesday we burned prairie grass fields in Summum and Middle Grove. The coolest prairie grass fields ever that are designed for quail. There are 17 brush piles and feed stations spread out around the fields (which we had to avoid burning). Anyhow needless to say there are thousands of quail hanging around this farm.... You want a quail population, I can help you with the recipe!




I love fire....anyhow straight from the fields I headed to Chef Todds wild game feast at the fishing park and then straight from the fishing park, I headed towards North Carolina at about 9 pm...I drove till about 2 am and stayed at a luxurious motel 6 around Dayton, Ohio for $32.99...Up at 6 am and headed to Burlington, North Carolina...

I made it to Doc's place about 6 pm and spent a good 90 minutes acclimating the perch from my 40 degree water to his 60 degree water...then we feasted at a North Carolina barbecue pit...about 10 pm I was off headed back towards Illinois.

With a check in hand from the perch delivery I upgraded to a $49 Super 8 wednesday night somewhere in Virginia about 1 am, but this time slept in till 7 am before journeying back through West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and then good ole Illinois...

Now back home I like usual have bitten off a bit more than I can chew, but by golly we are gonna get er done! In order to pull off all this stuff, I have assembled an amazing team capable of anything and everything. Since its my fishing blog, I get all the credit and glory, but really the guys are the ones who make it all possible....

 Once my fam comes home though I will have to gear out of production mode and focus on normal things like hygiene, bathing, eating meals, spanking and playing with kids. Tonight at Bass Pro I had a $50 gift card and I came home with a red ryder and 600 bb's...Noah and Mae are gonna start shootin....!!

Had some big time stuff going on this week as well. Page 46-48 in the May issue of InFisherman Magazine we talk about hybrid bluegills...Also on the cover of the 2013 InFisherman Panfishing Guide is a beautiful bluegill from my lake...I also this week signed a deal with Purina Mills to be a national aquatic ambassador for their Aquamax line of fish food! My first speaking engagement is at B n B farm and ranch store in Jesup, Iowa where we will be obviously talking fish nutrition along with other topics such as Algae and Aeration!! I am super excited to be one of four fisheries consultants chosen by Purina for this position!!!

So anyhow I also am in the midst of putting together a very unique fishing club that I think will be an amazing opportunity not only for area anglers, but for area lake owners as well...Fishing and Lake Management is every bit as good of a combo as PB and J. Definitely stay tuned as I get this program nailed down over the next few weeks.

Last but not least is a deer and wildlife food plot challenge we are putting together here in the next week or so... the challenge isnt a competition amongst landowners, but rather a competition amongst seed companies all claiming to be the best... So far I have 10 properties lined up where we will be planting competing food plot seed mixes basically side by side and documenting every step of the way. If anyone wants to be a guinea pig and get involved- landowner or seed company just shoot me an email to nate@hbpondmanagement.com and we will get you  discounted seed in exchange for your participation.

You dont have to know a thing about food plots, soil, or seeds. All you have to have is at least 1/4 acre chunk of land and a camera. We would like 3 or 4 more participants and can provide you with all the details necessary. We can even soil sample, prescribe step by step instructions, or even just plant the plot for you if desired. More details will come for this food plot challenge next week. So far we have 3 different seed companies with tons of different seed mix options...

The Ultimate Scuba Diving Dock

We built this cool dock last year with a built in Scuba Diving System and some underwater platforms to stand or sit on while watchin the fish.... Basically just put on a weight belt, put an airline regulator in your mouth and go down to a platform of your desired depth and interact with the fishes....This summer we will get some much better footage!! Come on Summa!!! Tis the dock building season! No good lake is complete without a nice dock to hang out on right on the water!

HOFP Night with Chef Todd!

If you are reading this blog than Chef Todd cordially invites you to his Wild Game Appetizers and Open House at the newly renovated Hooked On Fishing Park Clubhouse in East Peoria On Tuesday night April 2nd from 4-8 pm!


He is cooking up a wild game appetizer feast that consists of:
Grilled baja fish tacos
Snow goose and Italian sausage stuffed mushrooms
Blueberry and blue cheese venison sliders
Fulton Co. wild turkey egg rolls with sweet chili glaze

Also we will have brats, hot dogs, and s'mores y'all can cook over the big camp fire outside or take hot off the grill...

So just to repeat here are the details:
Chef Todd Open House at Hooked on Fishing Park
Tuesday April 2, 4-8 Pm
1807 N. Main St, East Peoria, IL right next to Dixon’s Seafood Shoppe.

 Also that night we will have information about our volunteer round up program.
Are you looking for a fun and rewarding volunteer position? Do you enjoy fishing? Do you like working with kids, senior citizens, and disadvantaged individuals?
Hooked on Fishing will hold orientation for people interested in being volunteers during the 2013 season. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, you are invited to come to the park at 10 a.m. on either Saturday, March 30 or Saturday, April 6. The orientation will include a description of volunteer positions in the areas of fishing helper, park maintenance, fundraising, and other duties around the fish park. All applicants for volunteer positions will be background checked.

More information about Hooked on Fishing can be found on our website www.hookedonfishingpark.org

Please call 309-219-3560 for more information, or email us at Hookedonfishingpark@gmail.com.

If you are unable to attend either of our orientations, please contact us so we can make alternate arrangements.

As you can see, we are able to take lots of kids fishing at the park each summer!!


Along with eating some good grub and checking out the new clubhouse and learning more about volunteer opportunities, you will have an opportunity to win via silent auction one or more of these awesome guided fishing trips from local fishing experts at the best places to fish in Illinois:

Guided multi species trip by Paul Center to Lake Bloomington or Everygreen Lake

Guided bass fishing trip with Bass Pro Fish guru Chad Fargher to private water

Fulton Co strip mine bass fishing with Kelly Presley

Trophy Crappie with Brad Belser at private lake

Fishing with John Graham. Fly fishing or river small mouth

Fish the "Rock" with Chris Rock for trophy bass

Illinois Land Company mystery lake trip, private waters galore with big fish!

Knox county private water self guided bass fishing trip for BIG bass

Ultimate multi species trip with Herman Brother's Lake Management

On the water with two elite High School Anglers. Private waters for big bass

Bass fishing with Bob Rask for trophy bass

Guided Otter Creek bass fishing

 Memorial Day Weekend at Otter Creek. 8hrs, Limit 10 boats, 2 per boat, $450/boat. Lunch included and prepared by Chef Todd. May 25th

Chef Todd cooking event at the Hooked on Fishing facility. Great for company gatherings!






So there you have it, tons of info packed into one little blog post, but hopefully the info was presented well enough to entice you guys to come on down and hang out with us at the park in east peoria from 4-8 pm!

Fire, Apples, and Trophy Trout

Saturday was by far the best outdoor day of the year! The wind was calm, the sun was shining, and and we got er done....had a big list to chew off so I spent Friday night laying it out as best as humanly possible.

So I guess I'll back up to Friday night late and this guy was riding shotgun with me. We were delivering a couple deer heads and a bunch of trout fishing gear and supplies to a client out in the country...


Saturday morning I started out at a prescribed burn clinic with the Peoria County SWCD. Here are some pics:





From there I made it out to help the guys plant 70 apple trees at our hunting farm near Ellisville:


Actually it was many varieties of apples, pears and persimmon trees. Each tree gets caged individually for protection from the deer and the white tree guards will stay on for about another month for protection from rabbits and mice.


So then I had to fly to Brimfield for some trophy trout fishing for an awesome fishing/eating event. En Route I stopped at ACE hardware in Farmington to grab some last minute fishing supplies and right next door is a grocery store so I picked up some corn and chicken liver and some last minute grocery items....

At 4 pm I made it to Brimfield and kicked off the trout fishing party! Our goal was to catch enough trout to feed 30 people....its a good thing the trout were biting, cause there were more like 40 people or more showing up for dinner:

Trent started off by landing this monster:


Rand followed it up with a beast of his own:


Pretty much everyone got in on the fish catching action:





Chef Todd was busy, so instead of pulling this off by myself, I just put all the guests to work cleaning the fish, prepping the veggies, mixing the trout chowder, wrapping the fish stuffed with veggies and bacon with aluminum foil and even grilling too... Assembly line delegation at its finest:




So every speck of food was gobbled up! Right there is a perfect example of enjoying a 1/3 acre fishing pond for fishing, food, fun, and fellowship! Everyone had a blast from start to finish and many kids caught there first fish and definitely cleaned and prepped their first fish...There will be many more fun fish fry's from this little pond throughout the year...next one will be during mushroom season......bluegills and mushrooms....

So I packed about as much as humanly possibly can be packed into one day in the great outdoors! Was just an awesome day that was topped off with some late night NCAA basketball. I was pretty tired during that last game....

Actually Saturday capped off a pretty awesome week in general. We picked up a load of Apple and Pear trees on Tuesday down in Missouri.


Allen and I installed a bunch down in Southern Illinois Wed and Thurs while Justin and Jared were installing orchards in Henry, IL and Canton, IL:


I have some real good clients down in Southern Illinois who have become really good friends! They have a little guesthouse tucked in the woods that we stay at every chance we get. Which is really convenient cause we go through their zone several times each year. Anyhow what I am getting at is we stop in every chance we get, cause Connie is literally one of the best cooks on the planet. Seriously no one compares to a full course Connie dinner.

Chef Todd is tops when it comes to wild game and fish, but he admittingly lacks in the dessert category. I turned off my diet for Wednesday evening! After Chicken Cordon Blue, almond bacon green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and glazed carrots, we had to decide between cherry or peanut butter pie....Im not good with such decisions, how can you choose just one?


Despite my little feast on Wednesday, I have been working out with my fam 3 days a week and am down 21 lbs in exactly 30 days....I am feeling stronger than ever and the extra energy is definitely an added bonus to eating all those fruits and veggies....

The snow today is definitely a downer, but I've already rerouted our early week plans and will be rockin full throttle once this stuff melts off!