EVERGREEN LAKE
There is a 10/10 curse on this 1,100-acre county park lake north of Bloomington. The lake has a 10-horsepower limit and it costs you $10 to launch here.

Worth the effort? Evergreen is a super muskie and crappie lake. As noted in the beginning of this article, a number of walleye/sauger hybrids in excess of the state record also call this water home. There is plenty of saugeye-holding structure on Evergreen, such as promising main-lake points, feeding shelves and steep breaklines.

The DNR says the forage base here is primarily shad, but small crappies will also be part of the bait matrix over the next several weeks as predators dog the schools of young-of-year baitfish.

The county park that surrounds this lake offers excellent camping facilities. A 10-horsepower motor is plenty -- if you have several days to fish the lake. The location of Evergreen just off Interstate 39 makes this a destination within three hours of virtually any point in Illinois.

For more information, call (217) 286-7170.

LAKE BLOOMINGTON
Just a short hop away is Lake Bloomington, which DNR biologist Mike Garthaus says holds a "solid" population of walleyes.

A 40-horsepower limit is in place on this 635-acre lake with considerable shoreline development. Besides this somewhat bizarre motor restriction, political maneuvering has established an outrageous boat-launch fee to gain access to the lake by those trailering boats. Because of this fee, Bloomington is essentially a private lake that is stocked and maintained with public funds.

STATE PARK LAKES
A 10-horsepower motor is plenty of juice on 77-acre Lake Carlton in Whiteside County. DNR surveys indicate a solid population of saugeyes, with some holding the potential for breaking the state-record mark. Although Carlton gets plenty of fishing pressure, not much of this effort is focused on the Stizostedium population. For many years, a rearing pond just off this lake was a major production area for muskie stocking in northern Illinois waters. Muskies still swim here, with saugeyes occupying similar habitat.

Morrison-Rockwood State Park that envelops Carlton and tiny Lake Le-Aqua-Na outside of Lena in Stephenson County is a great home base for the walleye angler who likes to camp.

Le-Aqua-Na has maintained a solid put-and-take population of "eater-sized" walleyes for years, thanks to annual stocking. However, at just 43 acres, this lake is little more than a backdrop for the campground. The best spot to target is along the dam.

Forbes Lake near Salem in Marion County has a similar fishery, with walleyes of keeper-size present but not specifically targeted.

Few realized how big some walleyes swimming in Pierce were until a local muskie club did some netting below the dam spillway to return game fish to the lake. At least a dozen 4- to 6-pound walleyes that had washed over the dam were swimming in the spillway tailwaters, causing considerable local speculation on how many more fish of these dimensions could be swimming in the lake.