Lake Carlyle - 8/23/2009

Just got back from across the border. Made my way to Illinois this morning to meet up with my buddy Jay to do a little fishing. Carlyle is about 15 minutes from his house so that was today's destination. It's a shallow lake. We were fishing in 3' - 5' of water out in the middel of the lake. There are deeper spots, but we were after white bass. We started on a large flat near the center of the lake and caught one or two. I was using a crank bait or a rattle trap. Jay was using crappie jig looped about 18" above a weighted spoon. This was the "local" favorite, as told to him by the bait shop. We fished a few more spots and had about 4 landed total. Watched one guy using the same rig Jay was using, but with a crank on the end of it pull one after another in. We couldn't get it to work. On our last area, there were boats nearly running over one another, everyone using the same setup. I finally tied the rig on with a crank bait 18" below the jig. And wouldn't you know, I had about a 15" white in the boat. It flopped out before I could pick it up or measure it. that was the last fish caught and we headed for the house.