Pounds Lake near Shawneetown: Fishing Spots, Seasons and Access

• Overview

  You will find Pounds Lake in Gallatin County, Illinois. Everything around it is open valley. With some 27 acres of water, there is room for a boat but no need of one. Shawneetown is the closest place, 8.1 miles off. Evansville sits 47 miles out, and it is the nearest city worth the name. The boundary is near enough that local access rules are worth double-checking.

• Where to Fish on Pounds Lake

  Depth is not on record here, so the bank has to tell you. Points where the flooded channel swings in are the reliable ones. Look for where the old bank line still shows under the surface. Public occurrence data for Gallatin County names bluegill, gizzard shad and longear sunfish. Those are county-wide records, so not every one of them will be in this water. At Pounds Lake the first feature you find is worth twenty minutes.

• Seasonal Patterns

  July runs about 78°F on average, January about 32°F. Mild ends to the year keep the season long. Cover comes and goes, so treat it with suspicion rather than trust. February into May fishes hardest as the water warms. On Pounds Lake that shapes the whole year. The hour either side of first light is rarely wasted.

• Tackle & Baits

  Whether you may fish here is not something records settle. There is a slipway at Pounds Hollow Lake, roughly half a mile off. Parking is close: a car park sits half a mile from the bank. You can camp half a mile off, which suits an early start. A picnic area is mapped about half a mile away. There are toilets mapped about half a mile away. A landowner's word beats anything printed elsewhere. Mud Lake, 6.2 miles away, makes the obvious fallback. Ask locally about Pounds Lake if anything is unclear.