A warm welcome to all you southern Illinois boys

[crappieken]

I personally want to welcome all you southern Illinois fellows to this board. Until just recently it seemed that everyone posting was from central Illinois. Until you folks joined the board it was difficult to get any information on any of the lakes from Rend Lake on south. It has been a few years, but I have fished Rend, Egypt, Cedar, Murphysboro, and Devil's Kitchen. Is there a body of water down there called Turkey Bayou? Seems a friend of mine who was living in Murphysboro at the time took me there years ago. I can't even remember how we did there.

[CarpPoop]

Thanks Ken. We do have a great deal of water to choose from in the southern part of the state. I got on this board to find vacation spots and found people very helpful so now i visit all the time.

Turkey Bayou is down here somewhere but i dont know where. I have been fishing these parts since i came to college here 20 years ago. Most of the publicity goes to Rend, Crab Orchard, and Lake of Egypt but there are quite a few places that exist down here that few people outside of the area hear or know about...turkey bayou probably falls into that category. We have smaller Shawnee forest lakes, a few oxbows, Ohio River Creeks that run inland for miles, and out of the way public waters that all contain crappie.

I know I feel very fortunate to plan a trip and have so many options in my mind to choose from on a given day. Im always glad to help should anyone ask.

[hack_62863]

try this place http://www.goingoutside.com/lake/103..._Illinois.html it's near carbondale

[crappieken]

hack - Thanks for the information on Turkey Bayou. As I read the material it really brought back memories from 25 years ago. Besides going to Turkey Bayou we visited the Oakwood Bottoms and did some fishing at the chute at Grand Towers. As I remember the fishing was terrible. I went down to visit my buddy in Murphysboro and the day I let home that area had 6 inches of snow. South of Salem the interstate only had one lane open in places. The day after I arrived we had temps in the low 60's, but the cold front that had passed and dumped all that snow really cooled the waters down there.

[CarpPoop]

ahhh the old grand tower chute. Used to hit that thing all the time when i lived a little closer to it. Had some spectacular days there....and also some bad ones. I can tell you this...if the water is right at the chute it can be fantasic. But i would say the water is right only 30 percent of the time and the rest of the time its too high, too low, or too muddy.

[sioutdoors]

take rt. 3 south of Murphysboro you will See the sign for Oakwood on your left about 5 miles. take that road to the east and go as far as you can, over the Levee ,left around the curve and turkey Bayou will be there in the camp ground. Hunt that area but wasn't sure about fishing there, lots of cotton mouths and rattlers