I went fishing today with a guide. We fished for muskys for five hours with nothing. The other boats were doing the same. It was ok. First time using a baitcaster and it was nothin to it. Fished for crappies for two hours and got a handful of scroungers. Not a banner day. Weather was nice.
My honest impression of this lake/reservoir is they took a creek with a bit of elevation around it in the middle of the cornfields and put a huge berm across it (half mile long) to make this lake. And they stock the crap out of it to make a fishery. There are supposedly musky, walleye, large and smallmouth bass, striped bass, crappie and bluegill. Probably two of which are native to the lake. This ain't no walleye lake, but they stock it heavily, so they say it is. Kind of like artificial insemination if you'll pardon the expression. Seems kind of unnatural. The scenery is less than stunning. I checked out the campsites briefly. It just wasn't that cool. That said, it can be fished easily from a canoe, it is small, only 318 acres and with so many fish stocked every year, it may be worth another shot. It's less than two hours from my shack. I may have learned some patterns today that can work on a better day. You just never know.
Cheers!

It has been many years since I fished the lake, but I had OK luck on it at the time. Mostly shore fishing, but was fun to drag the deep trees - nothing massive but a nice mixed bag of fish. If I remember right, the state record muskie came out of there a while back and was recently beaten by one from Shelbyville. You are correct on the scenery front, nothing to look at.

I'm not a big fan of Shabbona Lake. It seems phony in a way. It's all a man made fabrication. Stock a bunch of non native fish in a fishbowl and call it a premier fishing destination. Sure makes you want to see the BW again. Cause that's truly God's country.

Well, it is a state park, so...there's thaaat...but a lot of these artificial lakes are in our state parks. The target market is the less "sophisticated" fishermen. And, it is easy to get to from Chi-town. The park is very popular during the summer for family weekenders.
I did a quick day hike there in March. Scenery ain't much to write about, so I did a bit more history in my blog.