Cooling Lake - Braidwood, IL - 5/10

[Nonpoint]

Figured I'd start putting my IL reports up here so everyone can laugh about how pitiful the fishing is here compared to the southern states(unless we're talking monster salmon out of Lake Michigan).

Went out to Braidwood Lake, which is an active cooling lake for a nuclear power plant. I don't keep anything out of this lake...I just dont trust it, but its still fun to fish the lake has a nice layout.

Heres a map:
http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/Landmgt...wood%20Map.jpg

Many people around this area claim that the bass population of the lake is steadily declining and thats true because many of what we call Bucket-Heads...keep everything they catch until their 5 gallon bucket is full and they do this day after day and the DNR is about god damn worthless.

I'm still learning how to fish this particular lake, but I managed to pull up this little guy, he was 15"...didn't feel like grabbing the scale and if my tracker didnt have a measurement sticker on it, I wouldnt know how long he is either :P



I also ended up with this little cat on a large roach that I had about 2 feet off the bottom.



This lake apparently has a massive amount of carp and cats. I figure that I'll rig up a pole for that and throw it out while I'm throwing lures for bass. I know there are some pigs in this lake, I just need to figure out how to fish a lake thats 80 degrees in April.

[doc]

I would look at the glowing lures, since all the baitfish probably glow in the dark

[BigBassin144]

glow-in-the-dark baitfish. Those'd be some expensive swimbaits!

Nice fish though nonpoint. Bet there's not much Ice fishing done there. I'd love to go fish it with topwaters early in the year when people are fishing jerkbaits elsewhere.

BB