Carlyle, Kincaid?? HELP!!

[infishman]

On vacation the week of April 17th. Thinking about Carlyle or Kincaid for crappie fishing. I have never fished either lake. How is the crappie fishing on those two lakes? Any standing timber? Any ideas on places to stay? Bait shops in the area? Places to eat? Any help would be appreciated!!

[steve57]

I'm heading down that way next week, but I've never fished those lakes. Carlyle is not highly regarded, I'm skipping that one. We're staying at the Pin Oak Motel in Carterville for a few nights and hope to fish Crab Orchard, Kinkaid, and maybe Rend or Lake of Egypt.

I'll post a report when I get back on the 15-16th.

[infishman]

Do you have a phone number for Pin Oak? Have you stayed there before? Nice? Clean? Thanks for any info and looking forward to your report!!!

[crappieken]

infishman - Phone number for Pin Oak motel is 618-985-4834. Haven't stayed there in the last 25 years - don't know what it is like now. I would fish Lake of Egypt or Rend over Carlyle. Stopped by Rend a week ago on my way home from Paducah. Saw a fella with a dozen or so in a bucket - one of them was a good 12.5 inches.

[PIGINTHEPIGPEN]

On vacation the week of April 17th. Thinking about Carlyle or Kincaid for crappie fishing. I have never fished either lake. How is the crappie fishing on those two lakes? Any standing timber? Any ideas on places to stay? Bait shops in the area? Places to eat? Any help would be appreciated!!

I would take Kincaid over Carlyle anyday. Carlyle can be one of the roughest lakes in the state when the wind blows. I have duck hunted on Carlyle when 25mph winds produced two foot waves Carlyle is also Full of submerged stumps just below the surface. You really have to know your way around to avoid damaging a prop or lower unit. We pretty much idled the whole time I was there and we still hit a couple dozon stumps. On the other hand, if standing timber is what you want you can find it at Carlyle. It's a very shallow lake overall. As far as places to stay I'm not much help there. Fished Kincaid a few years back and we camped. Can't remember the name of the campground we stayed at, ''sorry'' :o We did pretty good on crappie though and Kincaid is a beautiful lake. Good luck to you and let us know how you did

[steve57]

I've never stayed at the Pin Oak, but they met most of my requirements - close to Carbondale and Crab Orchard, half-hour drive to some other lakes, cheap, and they will let me charge boat batteries. We'll see about clean.

PITPP - I heard Kinkaid was nice scenery and a pretty good crappie lake. Crab Orchard is supposed to have numbers, but not as much size. We'll see.

[steve57]

Just got back from four days in Carbondale, spent some quality time with my college student daughter and 3 different lakes. Fished Crab Orchard, Kinkaid, and Lake of Egypt, all for the first time. I caught fish on all of the lakes, but Crab Orchard by far was the best. I hit CO on Tuesday and caught probably 20 fish, half I would've kept. Wednesday was on Kinkaid. The front was going through, it was miserable. Caught about a dozen in 4 hours, all males shallow in the timbered coves. Most of them were small, a few worth keeping. Thursday was LOE, that was tough for me. Caught 10 fish, half worth keeping, but got half of them off of one spot. I put in a full day. The water was ridiculously clear to me, and they've had a lot of rain down there.

Back to Crab Orchard for Friday. Found fish in the morning stacked up on points around stumps and brush about 10' deep, just rarin' to go lay eggs. This was the only day I kept fish, and I brought home 15 that were mostly 10", with a few up to 12". I threw back around 15 more that were over 9.5". I think they were heading to the banks when the front hit, they'll be there this weekend I bet.

Water temps were in the low 60's except Kinkaid, it was upper 50's.

Biggest fish caught were 12.5", one at CO and one at LOE. Caught a 17.5" bass on Kinkaid on a crappie jig, and one the same size on CO. Fun on an 11' pole.