Fellsmere Reservoir, also known as Headwaters Lake or Lake Egan, is a new fishing lake that was created by the state of Florida to help create a world class bass fishing lake. It is a 10,000 acre manmade lake located in Fellsmere, Florida of Indian River County, Florida. The lake is fairly new lake, but it has quickly become one of the hottest bass fishing lakes in the country.
The lake is home to an unbelievable amount of productive-looking spots to fish. There is some flooded timber, but most of the cover you will be fishing will be vegetation. After the lake was created and flooded, it was stocked with around 1,000,000 Florida bass. While the lake does receive a lot of fishing pressure, it is still an unbelievable fishing lake.
Florida Fish & Wildlife Link for Headwaters Lake / Fellsmere Reservoir
Navigating the Lake – Take Your Time
There is a 25 mph speed limit on the lake, so you can’t go run and gun at 50 mph in your nice bass boats out here. When you come here for the first time or if you’re heading into new parts of the lake for the first time, take your time and make sure to use your gps to map your routes. There is so much shallow water cover that you will not be able to drive through, so go slow while you are learning the lake. You will also find a bunch of islands in parts of this lake where you can easily get turned around in a hurry. Go slow and map your routes and you’ll have a better trip.
There are some really good videos on moving around the lake done by Beyond Headwaters. We are adding their playlist so you can go through and learn more about navigating Headwaters Lake.
Fish the Shallow Water Cover
The average depth is approximately 6 feet deep, but there are huge areas with water in the 2 to 5 foot range. Some very impressive bass are caught in very shallow water, so it is hard to just rule out the real shallow stuff, but the better numbers of quality bass will usually be found where there is some deeper water near the shallow cover. For example, there are so many holes and canals that were created for this lake, so you have so many spots where you can find some slightly deeper water close to the real shallow stuff.
You have a lot of options to fish the weed edges, on top of the vegetation and many anglers flip and punch through the vegetation with 3/4 to 1 ounce weights added to their Texas Rig setup.
Fish the Deeper Water
There are several areas on this reservoir where you can go find some deeper water to fish. Some anglers do fish down deep while most will usually fish the edges where the cover meets the drop-off. You may have 20 to 25 feet of water to fish, but it is much more common to see anglers fishing maybe 8 to 10 feet right on the edge of the cover. This is just one example, so don’t go out here looking for 8 to 10 foot edges. The deeper water located near the edges of vegetation can vary quite a bit depending on what part of the lake you are fishing.
Shiner Fishing on Headwaters Lake
The fishing can be flat out awesome if you come out here with live shiners. There are so many spots where you can fish a lure and not get bit and then you throw out some live shiners to find that the spot was loaded with bass. They just wanted the real stuff and the real stuff is live, golden shiners. Here is a video of Kevin when the bite goes nuts just before sunset. It really is crazy how many bass you can catch from one smaller area with live shiners.
Get the Map
Currently, there is no electronics map for Headwaters Lake. However, there is a good waterproof map that shows many of the awesome spots to fish on this lake.
https://markevansmaps.com/fellsmere-reservoir-headwaters-detailed-enhancement-map/
Fish with Kevin on Headwaters Lake
Come fish Florida’s newest and best bass fishing lake. Kevin is the owner of UltimateFishingSite.net and he is now offering guided bass fishing trips on Headwaters Lake from December 2024 through June 11th, 2025. You will be fishing out of his brand new 2024 Mako Fishing Boat.
Kevin’s Guide Page – Fish with Kevin
