Lake Shelbyville...Has Bass?

[Rob Russow]

Well it was an epic day on Lake Shelbyville and I thought I would share. After work, Corey (a grad student I work with) and I decided to hit the big lake in search of some largemouth and to sort of practice for an upcoming BFL I have this weekend there. I hoped to hit some deeper points to find some good fish and so when we hit the water at 5:30 we ran to Lithia Springs down on the South end of the lake and fished deeper water. After about an hour without a bite and with the skies getting darker and darker we decided to fish the dam. After about 20 min. I was discouraged because the only bites we had was a musky that bit off my shakey head (grrrrr...). Then Corey suggested throwing a walker style bait and since I had experienced success on Clinton under the exact same conditions I decided to give it a go. After a few casts a nice 3 lb. fish was in the boat! Sweet... Well in the next hour the action was fantastic as the bass were just killing the bait (were we really on Shelbyville?) and we probably had close to 30 fish blow up on our walkers. Corey missed a real nice fish and I ended up with 3 keepers and probably 8-10 solid short fish. There is nothing more fun than topwaters and the excitement of the anticipation of the next bite made the evening very memorable.

If anyone is in the area and would like to come out in the Ranger with me, I have been fishing Shelbyville regularly as well as some other local lakes with success such as Woods, Taylorville, and Charleston.

Keep the great summer fishing reports coming and send your good luck to Steve who is out on Onieda this week representing the club in the Match Fishing tournament!

Rob