Spring is here and that means you'll be getting ready to hit the water for some fishing, so before you go we compiled a list of different lakes, rivers, and waterways you need to go fishing at in Illinois if you've never been before!

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There is nothing better than a calm morning on a boat with a cooler loaded up with beer, soda, sandwiches, and live bait ready to go for a day of fishing on the water. And Illinois is a diverse state with a bunch of different fishing options for you and your friends, here is what some of the experts say are the best spots to fish in the Land of Lincoln.

Wildernesstoday.com put together a list of the best fishing spots in Illinois, and they say on their site...

"Fishing in Illinois can be fun for anglers of all levels of skill because the Prairie State’s is abundant in natural lakes that are packed with large catfish and largemouth bass."

Their list includes the obvious places like the Mississippi River where you can land mega catfish and Lake Springfield which is known for its great amenities and bluegill. But one big suggestion that Wildernesstoday.com makes that we here down in central/southern Illinois don't think about too often is Lake Michigan, on their site they say...

"The best part about Lake Michigan is that it hosts the greatest variety of fish among all of The Prairie State’s lakes, which makes it one of the best fishing locations in Illinois. It has almost any species of fish one could catch in Illinois and more, including trout, salmon, and the voracious pike."

Lake Michigan is also where you can find some of the largest fish like the Sturgeon, the list goes on to mention places like Heidecke Lake in Morris, Crab Orchard Lake in Carbondale, and Devil's Kitchen Lake near Marion, to see the full list click here! Where do you think the best place in Illinois to fish is?

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

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