Fishing for white bass is sizzling right now at Lake Shelbyville.

Plus, there's a bonus. The tactic of putting white bass in coolers by the hundreds are netting bonus walleyes.

Guide Steve Welch and his buddies are landing both. Welch said walleye fishing is as good as he's seen it in many years. One friend pulled in a walleye weighing more than 8 pounds recently.

But the whites are what Welch focuses on in mid-summer much of the time. They are roaming the flats by the thousands. No size limit or creel limit are set for the panfish.

"You can flat load up the boat," Welch said.

The prospects should be excellent as long as water levels in the 11,000-acre reservoir remain higher than normal for this time of year.

Welch said the key is to locate flooded willow trees on the flats adjacent to points where they feed from sunrise until about 10:30 a.m. and again later in the day before sunset. Watch for boiling on the surface.

Welch uses an ultra-light rod, 4-pound line and a ¾-ounce spoon. About 1 foot above the spoon, Welch ties a 1-inch loop knot to add a treble hook dressed with bucktail.

When you feel a strike, wait to reel in. The thrashing white bass on one hook will often attract another white bass to take the other.

Two hours was all he and two others needed last weekend to catch 110 white bass between 10 and 13 inches, a good size for the skillet.

"Take a kid," Welch said. "Anyone would love it."

Larger white bass weighing 2-3 pounds and the walleyes are suspending off ledges on the outside of flats, he added. Find the ledge, mark it with buoys, move to deeper water and cast toward the drop off. Let the spoon bounce down until you connect with fish. A jig and half of a nightcrawler is also producing fish.

Tournament notes

-- Scott Bree and Dave Whalen won the Thursday Night Wildcat Tournament July 2 at Evergreen Lake with five bass weighing 9.77 pounds. Second place was Bryan and Amanda Estes. The weekly tournament will begin at 5:30 p.m. today at Lake Bloomington.

-- The Bloomington Normal Bass Club will host a Charity Buddy Bass Tournament on Dawson Lake on Saturday. Signup will be at the ramp up to a half hour prior to 6 a.m. start time. Entry is $75. Proceeds go to the Shriners Children's Hospitals.

Free fishing clinic

Jeremiah Sportsmen will host a free family fishing clinic from 8 a.m. to noon July 18 at Miller Park in Bloomington to introduce children to the sport. Learn equipment and setup, casting, knot tying and more. Phone Quinton Koch at (309) 823-3446 or visit www.jeremiahsportsmen.com. No fishing license is required.

Scott Richardson is Pantagraph outdoor editor. Contact him at (309) 820-3227 or email richardson@

pantagraph.com. Share stories and read past outdoor and fishing columns at www.pantagraph.com/blogs