Shell Lake, WI - Bass Fishing Trip

[NickMcD63]

I am heading out to Shell Lake, WI this weekend for a family fishing trip. We will be targeting bass for the most part and noticed that the south side of the lake has some good looking structure/cover. Anyone fish this lake that could give me tips about the lake? What is the water visibility like? What is the % of smallies/largies?

Thanks in advance everyone!

[Nick Kuhn]

Shell is pretty clear, although I'm not sure how it is this time of the year. Early in the year you can just look over the side of the boat and see fish cribs in almost 20 feet of water.

Fishing the lake is pretty straightforward: almost all of the lake is just barren sand, or barren muck. If you find anything that isn't those two things, fish them. Weed growth is variable in the lake. Some years you can find large flats of them, other years catching a weed is more difficult than catching a fish. Anywhere there is rock there will be fish. Cribs will also hold fish. I've never had much luck dock fishing there, mostly because the water has been so low.

Smallies/largies are pretty balanced in numbers. If you find a lot of weeds you will probably catch more largies. If you don't and fish rocks or cribs, you will catch mostly smallies.

[NickMcD63]

Shell is pretty clear, although I'm not sure how it is this time of the year. Early in the year you can just look over the side of the boat and see fish cribs in almost 20 feet of water.

Fishing the lake is pretty straightforward: almost all of the lake is just barren sand, or barren muck. If you find anything that isn't those two things, fish them. Weed growth is variable in the lake. Some years you can find large flats of them, other years catching a weed is more difficult than catching a fish. Anywhere there is rock there will be fish. Cribs will also hold fish. I've never had much luck dock fishing there, mostly because the water has been so low.

Smallies/largies are pretty balanced in numbers. If you find a lot of weeds you will probably catch more largies. If you don't and fish rocks or cribs, you will catch mostly smallies.

Thanks Nick!

I am assuming most of the rock/veggies are towards the south side of the lake near the island?

[Nick Kuhn]

Some years practically the whole south bay is a nice cabbage flat (and loaded with hammerhandles I might add), others there's hardly a weed in there. Hard to explain. The points have some rocks and there's some obvious rocks down there. The small point on the north end is more gravel but always has a few fish. Otherwise anywhere you can find a narrow weedband along the shore. The east end has more weeds in the main basin, but not every year.