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Learning to Fish a Flood Control LakeBy Steve Welch I have been fishing on Lake Shelbyville since I was a teenager and have seen many changes to this thirty-year-old lake. The shoreline has been raped of its trees by all the fluctuating water. I have seen the lake nearly twenty feet over summer pool and also down to six feet under summer pool. Believe me, it fishes very differently during these massive water level fluctuations. First, let's talk about where it is right now. It is at winter pool or 594 feet above sea level. You have to be very careful when you fish the lake at this level, especially in the north end. There are many huge flats on this end of the lake and you better swing wide of them when you are traveling around. You can be 300 feet from shore and still be in four feet of water. There are also huge sandbars that protrude out of the lake. Both of these structures have large stumps on them that can tear a lower unit off your boat. I fish two different patterns when the lake is at winter pool. First, the crappies want to be up the rivers and will be stacked along the old channel of the West Okaw River . I start at the railroad bridge and let the fish tell me how far they are up the river. I like them to be all the way to the mouth of Wilborn Creek, but it is only two feet deep right now. Water temperature and the urge to spawn will have the fish up there by the end of April. From the third week of April until mid-June, you will see me going farther up the river as the water gets deeper. The other pattern that I fish is in the deeper coves and the huge bays that have standing timber in them. I fish the north end or down the lake around Coon and Opossum creeks. They are very deep areas and pulling the lake down has little effect on them. I fish the trees at the creek mouths and watch my depth finder for the depth at which the fish suspend. During the spring crappies suspend to catch the warming of the lake surface. The fish will use the shoreline ledges in these coves to start their spawning movement. Look for this to start when you see your surface temperature get to 55 degrees and above or usually the third week of April. During the second week of May, you will see the Corp of Engineers start to bring the lake up to summer pool. If we have a good rain this only takes a week. The lake is now six feet higher than winter pool or 599.9 feet above sea level. The feeder creeks now have six feet of water in them and I take my big Ranger up them as far as I can go. This is the only lake where you can catch large crappie in only two feet of water until the last week of June. The feeder creeks that were empty just a few weeks ago now have smart weed growing along the shoreline in two feet of water. The fish get in these weeds and have excellent cover and shade. Any stump that lines the shore will have a small circle around it that the weeds won't take over. You can throw a jig suspended under a cork around a stump or laydown and the big crappies will hammer it. Believe me, I love to fish for crappie and go all over the country to fish for them. I have many styles that I use to do so, but I love throwing a cork the best. I know that a dozen or more good fish can be in such a small area no deeper than a foot. This pattern works when the water is 599 feet above sea level up to about 603 feet. Higher than that you can't see the old channel and going up the creeks isn't that beneficial. So what do you do at 603 feet up to about 610 feet? I fish the willows. You can see them anywhere there is a shoreline in the creeks or around the Wilborn boat ramp area. The fish will bury themselves in them and you can have a heyday with them, even in 90 degree heat. I have caught tons of crappie doing this when the water is high. Live bait under a cork works best. Just fish anywhere you can get your bait into the willows, especially if you see some wood. You must have about four feet of water on the outside edge. This works even in July. Now let us talk about flood stage. To me, that means higher than 610 feet above sea level. At this level you have to start using the high water ramps, because some of the parking lots will get water in them. Willows are still a good pattern but now I fish in the parking lots, especially the gravel ones. I have filled the boat with white bass, walleye and crappie by fishing parking lots. The coal shaft bridge parking lot is one of the best. White bass will flock to parking lots because of the gravel. I throw a ¼-ounce jig tipped with a minnow and a white twister on it. I let it go to the bottom and then just reel it back. This catches everything that swims. If the farmer that plants beans on Point Six is successful, you can now drive your boat right into the field and throw down the rows for white bass. Standing timber is hard to find when the water climbs above 610 feet, but the fish will still suspend around the trees you can find. There is so much new cover to look over when the lake is this high that you don't know where to start. Remember that sharp shoreline drops into the old river channel can be deadly as well. I have tied up to the Point Six sign and thrown into the Kasksakia River channel with the same ¼-ounce jig, fishing it up the drop. One season we did this every weekend for two months. I bet we caught 5,000 white bass during that time. Even though Lake Shelbyville can grow from its normal 12,000 acre size to nearly 22,000 acres, don't let it intimidate you. I hope these guidelines will help you locate fish at all these different lake levels. Steve Welch |