We have lost our fair share of gear out there as well, the debris pads from all of the rain are horrible if your trying to bust through them is nearly impossible, did ok fishing off the edges of them. We catch mainly bass when we go, I've pulled in a 7-8 lb largemouth a few years back, average one's for us are between 2-6 lbs out of Shell Creek. Caught one saugey about 6-7 years ago. Plenty of perch, crappie, I caught two white bass on our last trip and my old man caught 4-5, channel cat, and about 7 years ago I caught an 8 lbs blue cat in some sticks off the main lake using a sapphire blue craw jig. Shell Creek is by far one of our favorites.