Anglers bite at opening of trout season in DuPage
Richard Parmeter of Hanover Park said he fishes to enjoy the outdoors after being cooped up most of the winter.
“It just feels great to be out,” he said Sunday while monitoring his line at Silver Lake in Warrenville. “Even though the weather hasn’t been the greatest, it’s been nice to come out and feel the sunshine and smell the air. It’s what I’ve always liked abut fishing.”
The trout fishing season formally got under way this weekend at the DuPage County Forest Preserve District. On Saturday, the season’s opening day, there were more than 500 people fishing by 9 a.m. at Silver Lake alone, forest preserve district employee Bob Segraves said.
“It’s always a big weekend for us,” he said. “It’s nice because all these folks who come for the fishing see what else we have, too.”
To prepare for the opening of the season, the forest preserve district stocked Pickerel Lake in Wayne and Grove Lake in Wood Dale with about 2,400 fish combined. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources stocked the 62-acre Silver Lake with about 2,800 rainbow trout, averaging just over a pound in weight and 14-15 inches in length.
Parmeter said he first got interested in fishing when he was a child. His father used to take him and his older brother on fishing trips up to Door County, Wis.
“I really grew up with it. I’m happy there’s a place like this that’s so close and still gives me the feeling that I’ve gotten away from things,” he said.
Bolingbrook resident Joe Sampugna visited Silver Lake on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, he said, was a madhouse.
“It was insane. There was a line blocks long to get in,” he said.
On Sunday afternoon, things had quieted down considerably. Sampugna had caught two trout in the morning, which he planned to take home with him.
“It’s been nice out here today, though I might be heading out soon,” he said, eyeing the increasingly cloudy sky.
Segraves said people flock to the county’s trout-fishing spots from all over the Chicago area. He said anglers should act fast if they dream of catching fish, as many of the trout in the lakes will be gone withing a few weeks.
For information on fishing or the forest preserve district’s lakes, go to dupageforest.com.