Embarras River Fishing Spot

• Elevation: 650'
• Last Modified By: vinny60 on 09/09/09 06:43 PM
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The Embarras River is a tributary of the Wabash River, 185 mi (298 km) long, in southeastern Illinois in the United States. The waters of the Embarras reach the Gulf of Mexico via the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. The river drains a watershed of approximately 1,566,450 acres (2,440 sq mi/6,320 km²) in an agricultural region. The name comes from French explorers, who used the term embarras for river obstacles, blockages, and difficulties relating to logjams and the like. The Embarras River rises in Champaign County. The upper reaches of the Embarras include: the detention ponds near the intersection of Windsor Road with U.S. Route 45 in southeastern Champaign; the southern portion of the University of Illinois campus, including the small creek near the Vet Med Building; and Meadowbrook Park in south Urbana. The Embarras flows generally southward through Douglas, Coles, Cumberland and Jasper Counties. In Jasper County it turns southeastwardly for the remainder of its course through Richland, Crawford and Lawrence Counties. Portions of the river's lower course have been straightened and channelized. It joins the Wabash River 6 mi (9.7 km) southwest of Vincennes, Indiana. Along its course the Embarras passes the towns of Villa Grove, Camargo, Charleston, Greenup, Newton, Ste. Marie and Lawrenceville. The middle section of the Embarras is one of Illinois' outstanding rivers because of its high species count and its diversity of habitats, including sandbars, gravel bars, raceways, riffles, and silt-bottomed pools. The basin's climate is an excellent example of the continental regime. There is a broad range of temperature extremes and, as a rule, precipitation is greatest in the warm seasons and least in the dead of winter. Forty inches of rain fall in the region in a typical year, but only about 11 inches reach the Embarras and its tributary streams. Some of the most common fish are the spotted bass, the long-eared sunfish, the slenderhead and dusky darters, the bluntnose and silverjaw minnows, and four shiners: the redfin, the steelcolor, the sand, and the spotfin. The Embarras River basin contains a variety of parks and other heavily-used recreation sites. Visitors to state-run lands create $15 million in annual economic activity and sustain some 230 jobs.

The Embarras River (pronounced "EM-brah" or "AM-brah" IPA: /?æmbr??/) is a tributary of the Wabash River, 185 mi (298 km) long, in southeastern Illinois in the United States. The waters of the Embarras reach the Gulf of Mexico via the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. The river drains a watershed of approximately 1,566,450 acres (2,440 sq mi/6,320 km²) in an agricultural region. The name comes from French explorers, who used the term embarras for river obstacles, blockages, and difficulties relating to logjams and the like.