Hi Greg,
There are a couple of guys who freedive, and spearfish, in the Chicago area. I've dove with Jim beofre(freedivechicago on here) and have taken him out on some of the wrecks off of Milwaukee. Santiago is onther spearfisherman who lives down by you and dives other places as well. There are also a couple of guys, John and Seth, who live in Illinois, but further west.
This isn't the best time of year to spear in the southern part of the state due to the crappy vis. Later on in the year we'll start jumping back into the Madison lakes and shoot pan fish, and maybe a carp or two. Lake Michigan is pretty restrictive, only rough fish, so not that great for Spearing. It does have great vis and soem nice wrecks in it to freedive on- the ones in Chicago are also all fairly shallow.
Take a look through my old posts on here for other info about the area- there are too many of them to link up to this post.
Also make sure you look up "Freedive-a-palooza" so you can see where we gather every summer, and maybe agian this fall.
Hope that helps,
Jon
