Fishing at Tall Tree Lake, Johnson County, Illinois

• Overview

  You will find Tall Tree Lake in Johnson County, Illinois. The surface lies 446 feet up. At about 50 acres, a day is enough to walk the shoreline properly. Around 1.3 miles of margin, front to back. Vienna lies 4.8 miles from the water. Evansville sits 83 miles out, and it is the nearest city worth the name. The nearest boundary is a fair way off.

• Where to Fish on Tall Tree Lake

  No chart reached our records; the first cast is your sounding. The old creek line under the surface is the feature worth finding. The arms fish better than the open middle whenever the water is up. Public occurrence data for Johnson County names bluegill, stripetail darter, longear sunfish, yellow bullhead and green sunfish. These are county-wide records, so not all of them will be in this water. The near bank of Tall Tree Lake is often the one people ignore.

• Seasonal Patterns

  On the long-term average, July reads 78°F and January reads 31°F. The year turns gently, without extremes at either end. Cover comes and goes, so treat it with suspicion rather than trust. The cooler months are the comfortable ones to fish here. Tall Tree Lake fishes to that pattern most years.

• Tackle & Baits

  Whether the bank is open is not something our records settle. Nothing formal is recorded here: no ramp, no car park, no marked path. For the catfish, fish bottom baits into the deeper holes and let them sit. Where the road in crosses private land, ask first. Some ground is open by custom rather than by right, so tread carefully. Should this one be busy, Dutchman Lake is 1.3 miles off. Confirm before you fish Tall Tree Lake.