This was a Meetup.Com organized event of a paddle Chad had organized, with a little help from me, a couple of weeks ago. The discovery of this route was motivated by the lack of desire to pay put-in or take-out fees to the greedy land and business owners along the Fox and Illinois Rivers…mostly the Fox River, though. The banks of the Fox River south of Yorkville and north Dayton are virtually ALL private property and everyone wants a small cut JUST to a boat in the water and be on your way. Hopefully, though not likely, the State will step up and provide public launches, but with the threat of state park closures already…this isn’t likely to happen.
Right at Dayton, though, there is HydroDam that seems to be extremely recreationally-friendly! During our first paddle a couple of weeks ago, one of the workers there was chatting with us about the facilities philosophy on access to the river. They really have and continue to work hard to keep access to the river open for fishing, canoeing, kayaking, etc. They allow portaging around the dam, as well.
This trip, we had a Chad, Randy, Julia, Kathleen and Ken (the 3 of which drove all together with Ken.) Julia and Kathleen stayed behind to watch the gear while us 4 guys dropped 3 vehicles at the take out.
It was a great day. The weather was beautiful. The dells along the edge near the put-in are always a nice ‘opener’… Then of course, paddling through 
downtown Ottawa and it’s older buildings is nice. Once we hit the Illinois River, it opens up quite a bit…Buffalo Rock is probably the highlight of the paddle.
It did threaten to rain once or twice, but fortunately, all we got was a drizzle during our lunch stop at a park in Ottawa.
