Lakes/Ecosystems

The Forest Preserve District of Cook permits and encourages hook and line recreational fishing in many lakes and ponds throughout its holdings. Some of these fishing areas allow boating activities, including rowboats, canoes sailboats. Other locations are designated wildlife refuge areas where no fishing or boating is permitted in order to reserve habitat for many wildlife species that inhabit the forest preserves.

The Fishing Guide lists all fishing and boating locations, and all regulations and other information on fishing, including maps of 27 lakes, ponds, quarries, reservoirs and sloughs within the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. The Guide is available here for downloading in Adobe® Acrobat™ PDF format. Printed copies of the Fishing Guide are available at the FPDCC Headquarters in River Forest and also our Nature Centers.

Click here to view Common Fishes of Cook County.

Or click to view the FPDCC Fishing Area chart here.

Visit the Fishing page in Recreation for more information...

For information regarding each of our 27 lakes, ponds, quarries, reservoirs and sloughs, including detailed maps displaying water depths, visit the Lake Maps page.