Kosydor Adventures

Kosydor Fish Camp on Crab Orchard Lake awoke to clear skies and a light breeze. The guys in camp were looking forward to some trolling for Crappie. The coffee was made, the boats were checked over and made ready to launch. Ron Jr. and Ron Kosydor Sr. chatted about fishing near the bridge while finishing off the coffee. Mike and Leo Kosydor made plans to fish near campground bay before searching some of their other hot spots. Ron and Ron could not locate any fish near the bridge where they had caught 75 fish several weeks before. They moved near the damn and started picking up a few fish in deep water. Mike and Leo motored up and complained they had not found the fish yet either, but that was about to change. About a half hour later Ron and Ron could see that Mike Kosydor had a large fish bending the 12 foot crappie rod. Leo was moving about the boat pulling in trolling rods to make room for Mike to fight the heavy fish. After what seemed to be 5-10 minutes Mike yelled that he had a monster Carp and not a Channel Cat as we had assumed. Mike asked for assistance and to bring our big net. Minutes later the huge fish was dropped into the bottom of the boat. This monster was caught on a white and chartreuse Jiffy Jig with 6lb test line while trolling for Crappie.

It was a nice day at the camp ground on Sunday. We spent the day on the beach, Susan, Kelli, Mike, Ron, Andrea, Katy,Taylor, and Zachary. We rode our Seadoos in the sun . It was getting around 4:00 so we headed to the camper. The sky was looking bad like it was going to rain so we got everything in the camper. We were watching the news and there was a tornado warning for Carbondale and other parts in the Southern county. Grandma Marge called Ron at 6:00 to tell him the storm was coming for us. Andrea’s Dad Mark was calling her and keeping her updated on the storm also. Ron and Mike were saying it will miss us we will just have a thunder storm, were they wrong or what? Susan and Andrea knew better, they wanted to be safe than sorry, so they took the kids, Kelli, Katy, Taylor, and Zach to the John A. Logan College to take shelter. Right when we were leaving we saw the state troopers telling people they want to evacuate the camp ground. People were trying to push in the shower houses to take shelter! The tent campers were out of there! We were turned to go to John A. Logan College and we looked behind us and we saw a funnel cloud! SCARY!! We ran inside to the college, and some people from the camp ground were already there taking shelter with their dogs, while ours were with Ron and Mike at the Camper. The kids were scared while we stay there for a hour. Andrea called Ron and ask him if he was doing ok and he said, “I’ve blown into the lake and a catfish ate my eyeballs.” hahahah!………! What really happened is the wind shook the campers really hard thats all! Then a Security guy told us the first storm was over, but there is another one coming a couple hours away just as bad as the first one! So we went back to the camper and seen if Mike and Ron survived. They did and everybody and everything was safe! It was raining the rest of the night and the other tornado never came!!☺ We all SURVIVED!!!!!!!!!

Propellor Point on the Crab Orchard Lake near Carbondale, Illinois claims another propellor to the deep six. More like the deep 2 feet when my 50 horse merc bounced on the bottom. What turned out to be a simple quick boat cruise to show my dad and his buddy where the Crappie hang out ended in a destroyed prop and half of my bottom keg missing. Oh, I think you hit a log they said—I wish it was a log, more like a iron kettle laying on the bottom. I had the camo Triton at full speed when I noticed that I was kinda close to the buoys marked “underwater obstructions”. I cut the wheel to swing wide of the point only to hear the mercury clank the bottom and it was too late. I shut her down and coasted to a stop, restarted the engine and took off again for the boat dock. The Triton seemed to move ok through the water and I was glad she was moving OK. When we pulled the boat from the water is when it became clear I was getting out the wallet for a new prop. I knew the lake was low from the no-rain summer, but its too late now.