Shabbona Lake fish report 7-30-10

Bass fishing is good and the water clarity is good.
Last night water temps were in the low ‘80’s. Large and smallmouth bass were biting on the dam face drop-shotting small soft plastics as well as wacky rigging and jig and pigging.  Largemouth bass were also being caught along the deeper weedlines using small soft plastics. The deep weedlines all over the lake are holding largemouths.
Walleye fishing has been fair with walleyes being caught in hte east bay, along the deeper weedlines and on the rockpiles.
Bluegill fishing is good with some real nice ones being cauhgt on leeches on hte rockpiles and the deeper flats.

For some great fishing try shabbona in the evening

Most fishermen give up once the 90 degree days start. I don’t, I just change my focus a bit. I do this by targetting Shabbona Lake to fishing in the evenings.

the first thing you will notice once you arrive at the lake at 4 pm on a Wednesday is that there are only about 10 other boats on the lake. This is nice. You will also like the fact that it will cool off around 7 pm, but the best thing about fishing the evenings at Shabbona is walleyes.

My favorite place to evening fish is the rockpiles on the roadbed. There are 19 rockpiles on this roadbed. Run your boat up and down the rockpiles until you see fish suspending close to the rocks. The ideal situation is to mark two of the piles with your structure markers and then anchor in between them.

The only bait that i use in the summer is leeches.

I like to use both slip bobbers and split shot rigs positioning the slip bobbers over the tops of the piles so that leech will sit in the faces of any fish that are on the pile. Cast your split shot rigs to the edges of the piles. Drag the leech very slowly past the edges of the rocks.

Every species of fish that swims in the lake relates to these rocks. If you hit it right you will have some of the best multi-speices fishing of the season.

You should really get out here and sample this. I am going to give you a tip, don’t come out to the rocks with only one dozen leeches because the perch and bluegills will peck you to death.I have used 5 dozen leeches in a single night, but I caught some really nice walleyes, cats and bass as well.

This is one of my favorite bites of the year!

Jay Angel can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Shabbona Lake fish report 7-1-10

Water temps are in the high 70’s and the aquatic weeds have not grown up as high as they should be by this time of the summer.

Walleyes:

Walleye fishing is good. Walleyes have invaded the weedlines in large numbers. Use minnows or leeches in the evening hours. You will also find them on the deeper flats and on the rockpiles. You will catch large numbers of 12 - 17 inchers to find one keeper of 18+.

Hybrid stripers:

Yes I said hybrid stripers. They are being caught on the deeper flats. I caught them using a 3 inch long gulp alive minnow. I have heard many reports of anglers catching hybrids using surface lures.

Bluegills:

Several 6 - 8 inch long bluegills were caught over the rock piles using waxworms.

Lots of fish were caught on Shabbona Lake

I was out on Shabbona Lake for the Bass competition yesterday. Stayed on the lake from open to close. Bass action was slow and my customers did not want to fish for bass all day long so we decided to fish for walleyes.

I set myself up on my favorite weedline by the campground. We caught a huge catfish there and then my phone rang. It was my good buddy Bob Jackson. He told me that they are catching lots of small stripers and a few walleyes. I thanked him for the info. After Bob left his spot I moved in and began catching fish immediately.

We caught small perch, a few cats and walleyes.

I took a break from this action to fish for crappies in the middle of the day. Crappie fishing was fair, with many small fish. We did catch a couple of really nice ones in hte 10 - 12 inch class.

Then we went back to the shallow rocks and began catching walleyes again. These walleyes were not big, but there was a big school parked right where we were anchored.

Walleyes were caught using leeches, minnows and crawlers.

This bite is going to get better as the summer wears on.

Jay Angel can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Shabbona Bass

With the Bass Open at Shabbona Lake taking place this weekend I thought that I might give you some advice.

Most people know that you can always catch bass on the dam face, but that area gets so much pressure that the bass quickly move off of it. I have learned that they move off of the dam quickly once they become pressured. One piece of advice is to keep your boats 30 feet or more away from the shore. I see guys with their boats right up practically on the shore. This will spook the bass away and they will not come back for an hour or more.

I have been out there alot lately. I wish that the weeds were up a bit more, they should be by this time in the summer, but they aren’t. I think that you are going to catch a big bass you are going to have to concentrate on a weedline that is in close proximity to deep water.

The big bass that I have caught this year have all been caught in areas where most people dont fish. There are some very nice deep weedlines at the entrance of the no motor zone. There are more of them between the campground and the northeast bays, and some between the east bay and the spillway bay, and more in the southeast bay.

I have been doing lots of froggin lately, but the big bass seem to be in the deeper water. i have been catching them using soft plastic or jig and pigging. I like to cast a jig and pig or flip a big soft plastic lure up to the weedlines. Hop the lure around the weedline.

You will also find lots of stumps in the water.Concentrate on the stumps that are in 3 - 12 feet of water. You will catch plenty of bass by flipping soft plastic on these stumps.

Jay Angel can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)