The lake level is 599.97 or basically summer pool. Water temps are running from 81-85. The lake is pretty clear despite many pop up showers. The area from Bo-Woods boat ramp over to Coalshaft bridge and from Wilborn boat ramp down to the Point 6 flat has so many balls of shad you can’t believe they are hungry. The south end of the lake is nothing like this. Only on the three flat is there shad activity like this.

We also have been fighting a very bad algae bloom that just lingers on. Recent rains have helped break it up. It attaches itself to all structure on limbs and over cubes so thick you can barely see the fish under it.

On the north end where I have been doing most of my fishing I am starting to see a thermocline at 15ft. Eventually this will help re-locate all the fish to structure at this depth all over the lake and then it will be red hot and you will start catching so many crappie your arms hurt.

“CRAPPIE”
I am bouncing around from cube to cube and also using a lot of laydown trees in about 14-20ft. The cubes I like to set up my slip bobber rig to drift right across the top. Drifting is critical so I need a slight southwest breeze. If you don’t get the breeze we lift the bobber a few inches imitating the minnow getting away. When drifting this imitates the same thing.

I have two Livescopes on my boat so I can pull within 40ft. look at the cube from my drivers position if I don’t see fish up on the top we don’t stop. They might go back in the cube but at least I know they are present. If we don’t have a fish over ten-inches in ten minutes we leave even though we are catching them pretty fast. I explain to my customers don’t worry plenty of places to catch 9 1/2in. fish most likely will catch 75-100

“WHITE BASS”

I am up on flats on the north end from 32 bridge over to point six. Putting my boat in about six-feet casting out off the flat into the wind in about ten-feet very close to the drop into twenty. Bait needs to be present as do yellow bass all though annoying and aggressive if your catching them won’t be long you will get a white bass. The whites I am catching are running 10-14in. best eaters in the system just don’t know where those big two-pound plus fish went we were catching pulling spinners in May. We are getting forty or so in short order so really helps with the creel we have to clean because we spend half the day crappie fishing.

I am using my jigging spoon and tying a 1/32oz. hair jig right above it to entice two fish at a time and this happens quite often. We cast it out towards the drop into the wind because this pushes the bait up onto the flat. Allow it to hit bottom then pop it off bottom catch up with your slack as it falls back towards the bottom. You will have no problem feeling the bite.

The rods I use are 7ft. medium heavy spinning rods spooled with twenty-pound Suffix braid down to a barrel swivel and then two-feet of twenty pound fluorocarbon line. This heavy line allows me to rig a small loop knot and attach my hair jig so it hangs off the main line. Then at the bottom my 5/8oz. jigging spoon. I took a Bomber Slab spoon and fixed it to allow us to cast it and not get hung as much. I took off the treble and put on a number four Octopus hook and then dressed it with tensile for flash. This spoon will pop right off stumps if you get on the backside.

Why such heavy rods you ask. We catch everything with this spoon from three-pound sauger to ten-pound channel catfish to forty-pound buffalo carp. Doubles of two-pound whites aren’t uncommon too.

I have openings for these combo trips as I like to call them and will be doing them until mid-October before we switch back to just crappie fishing.

July 23,29
August 4-8,11-13,19-22,25-28
September 8-13,15-30
October 1-3,6-15

October crappie only 16,17,20-25,27-29,31
November 1,2

“KENTUCKY LAKE”

Each year I go down to Kentucky Lake “Big Sandy” area near Paris Tennessee both spring and fall and stay a month. I have been going down there for many, many years. Big and I mean big crappie swim there and we get our share. We all stay at The Lake Lodge, Eric Nichols owns it and it is very nice and secluded. 731-571-8304. My guide rates are the same as at Shelbyville 400.00 for one or two but I have nothing to do with lodge rates. He gets 100.00 per night plus tax for two of you to split.

It really is a bucket list spot and we all go to dinner as well as breakfast and on Thursdays Johnnie Mac at The Blues Landing is a must. They have live entertainment every week on Thursday-Sunday. All of them good enough to play in Nashville. Plus Blues is a Cajun restaurant and the food is to die for.

I ask all my customers what’s your biggest crappie then set out to break that. Most have done it with me multiple times. 14-16in. crappie are pretty normal. I have three seats up front on my Yar-Craft and we tight line a jig or drop-shot a large minnow right over deep structure mostly stake beds anywhere from 6-30ft. depending on the season. For this reason and the rooms sleep two I don’t offer three person trips down there. My openings for the fall are.

November 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,17,20,26,27

I know it’s deer season but this is really an experience you won’t want to miss. I could just stay home and guide for more money since I pay for lodging as well and an out of state guide license isn’t cheap, but I know how good it can be and want to share it with you before I just age out like about all the other guides down there. I will be going back in Mid-March through Mid-April but don’t have a calendar yet. I need to ask my regulars what dates they want as many come down there with me spring and fall and they get first shot at the dates they want. You come down once you will be just like they are.

Give me a call at 217-840-1221 or send me an email from my website at Lake Shelbyville Guide.Com

Steve Welch
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