It's been 25 years since I fished IL!!!

Back in the 1980 - 1995 period I lived in Cape Girardeau and I fished So. IL heavily, Rend, Kinkaid, Egypt, Cedar, Devil's Kitchen, and yes, even Horseshoe and the Ohio out of Golconda.

I am going to take a week and go back to some of those old places I loved back then, but I need some help. I am 73, do I need a out of State permit? Are there any special rules that I need to know about for my boat. Battery boxes (even if they are strapped down and in a covered compartment) for example? Can you troll? How many rods, etc?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

You should be able to fine all of that information on the Illinois DNR website. There are a lot of "expert's" that will tell you there interpretation of the law but the only way to be sure is checking yourself.

Thank's for all the useful information.... er, ah, can you tell me where on the DNR website that talks about battery boxes or the number of rods I can have? Somehow I must have missed that page.

Your batteries have to be secured and have at least terminal covers. You can troll no problem. I know you can run at least two rods a guy, but I know there are situations when spider rigging you can have more at least at some lakes. I wouldn't take that part of info from me though. You do need an out of state permit. I believe they're 32 bucks a year for out of state for the whole year.

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I hope that helps! Here's the site with the full regs https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/fishing...formation.aspx


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The good part is the fish are still there. Egypt has special regs.....https://www.sipower.org/p/EGLakerules.pdf.


Here is another...Home: I Fish Illinois

And .....https://www.boat-ed.com/illinois/boating_law.html

Good luck...

I too am from cape and fish some of these same places. horseshoe and cedar are 9.9hp lakes and have a two pole limit per person. i don't really fish cedar so you may wanna double check me on that one. i mostly fish kincaid and you can spider rig with three pole max and 2 jigs/hooks per pole. egypt is the same as kincaid on pole limits etc. i fish horseshoe occassionally with minimal success but the fish are usually good quality. fished there yesterday for about 6 hours and caught 4 nice crappie and lost 2 other nice ones trying to get them out of some thick stuff. i just like the scenery and the thump mostly why i keep going back.

Thanks again! I got a ticket many, many, years ago on Horseshoe. I had a 10' aluminum jon boat and would pull the battery out of my pick up to run the Shakesphere 606 trolling motor. I got the ticket for not having a fire extinguisher and no battery box. I never could figure out how the aluminum boat or me was going to catch on fire. 20+ years later I did have a fire in a 17.5' Aluminum river Jon. The only thing that burned was the plastic battery box covers. Go figure.