waterpossum

Thought it funny that last years winners at their classic won only $20,000 total, which might pay their expense if they fished all the tournaments, but they can stand proud with their $500 certificate for a set of mud flaps.( i.e. the advertised 130% payback)

That's really a convoluted entry fee explanation.

Long's no longer exists, Blue Bluff said last year they were going private, Lee's is for property owners only, Twin Bridges, Ice Box, Ponderosa, Indian Hills and Four Seasons are the only ones still open.

Was the Polar Bear tournament held yesterday? I don't see any results posted yet. Thought that the big stringer results posted about the last Stockton tournament might be an indication of the stick bait bite.

Paintnfurdoe and I still fish together as time and work permits. Years ago we were both active in a bass club and really got to know Steve over the course of 15-20 years in the club. He has been an available link to us and Stockton Lake, but more so just a good friend.

I know the state record Smallmouth came out of Stockton, but I don't know of any official records kept on the other species. Unless it's something really outstanding there isn't much emphasis on individual lake records.

Seems that would be an odd regulation on Table Rock since Hybrids and Stripers are not stocked there. I guess it might be possible someway that a few might get discharged out of Beaver Lake. Currently the MDC and AG&Fish are in a rift about MDCs plan to stock 16,000 stripers in Bull Shoals. The locals in Ark are all against it.

To an extent I think your probably right Walcrabass . The raising of a length limit would probably result in a little better quality. On the other hand the genetics involved in this strain plus a lake like Stockton that can't be deemed as a high fertility type of lake is a more contributing factor. Case in point if you truly want to catch a large crappie in the Midwest a few shallow stained/farm basin lakes in Kansas would be a good choice. Lakes like Fall River and Toronto have a creel limit of 50 with no minimum length limit but regularly produce 2-3 lb crappie. I have fished Stockton since 1980 and have seen this lake gradually improve. The 80's were a disaster. However in all those years of hundreds of fishing trips I have never caught crappie out of Stockton that can compare with 4 or 5 Kansas lakes.( Not talking numbers so much, but size) At one time Smithville Lake near KC experimented with introducing Florida strained bass. For a number of years double digit bass became very common. Unfortunately after about a decade of unprecedented bass fishing a bass virus destroyed the majority of bass in the lake. Whether the Florida strained stocking would have taken hold could never be substantiated. Would the MDC be receptive to experimenting with a crappie population that is thriving, but probably not the genetics to get trophy size?

Thanks. Did Randy fish the Friday nighters?

Thanks for the info

I enjoyed the night fishing tournaments held out of State Park this summer and was wondering if there are any winter day tournaments held on Stockton.(preferablely buddy type) I don't have any real current reports other than about a week ago a friend and I crappie fished and slogged around for most of the day around Mutton and Ruark with no success until about 5:00 (before the time change) and caught about 20 with 8 keepers in the last hours in 20' in Mutton cove. Nearly all the better fish were hitting the jig on the fall and swing back to the boat. The smaller ones were strictly vertical near the bottom. I have been getting second hand reports of guys that are limiting out in the last few days.

If Stockton received the same big rains that occurred here in Joplin overnight, I would think the fishing should be extremely good.

Very accurate post. I was of course fishing a bass tournament a week ago and the flats just N of the island at Masters came alive with schooling whites. They were driving those shad nearly to the bank. Funny because a boat with trollers went between me and the bank about 10 minutes before they came up in that area.

Thanks for your input. I just noticed that the graph now showing is not the same as the one I posted earlier. This was posted as a direct link, which would explain the change.

Most every morning when I get up I check the local lake levels in the newspaper. Stockton Lake has been pretty consistant at about 868 through the summer to present, maybe inching down a little bit recently. To my surprise this morning the level showed 866.64 as opposed to 868.05 only Tuesday. I thought at first it only a misprint, but on further investigation after checking a corp chart noticed for a period Tuesday there was a drastic drop in water. Any explanations please.?

The good news for me and my partner, after seeing our Friday night tournament results we have gained a second new sponsor. In addition to the Humane Society, PETA has endorsed us.

I have enjoyed it too. We started fishing just in time to get in the number of tournaments necessary to fish this Friday night. Normaly Sept is not one of my more favorite months to fish because of the transition associated with the start of the water cooling down. However after reading that some big fish showed up last week maybe we will get lucky and find a couple. Funny, but my partner too is really hung up on throwing that spinner bait shallow after dark. The majority of our better fish up until now have been as you described been deeper on plastics. Hope to see you on the lake sometime. I fish out of a 19' silver -black bass tracker with 90hp mercury. Unless there are some fall-winter bass tournaments I will probably go back to chasing crappie in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. Normally I catch a pretty good crappie out of Kansas in the fall. I had one a little over two lbs. in June over there, but did not have my camera to take a picture before I released it. The smaller fish, however are released in a skillet.

You might look at my reply to Walcrabass. I went up in Price Branch yesterday There are a lot of those darn Water Turkeys in there. I only caught two dinks in there. I fished main lake back to State Park without much luck. There were a lot of fish busting behind me from time to time over extremely deep water. The lake was pretty calm right before dark and the middle of the main lake was alive with all kinds of bait fish on the surface. Maybe this years shad fry??? My hats off to the guys that can catch a big bass. I have just not been able to catch much over 2lbs.

12" Black worm 1/4 oz weight. Fish are suspended this time of year in the timber. The bite is hard to detect especially if there is any wind. Trees with a lot of horizontal limbs are best. You may get bit 5' deep or 15' deep. If the bait can hang over a limb under water when you lift it to fall back over the limb it seems to trigger a lot of the bites. For me this is about all I feel real comfortable doing in the heat of the summer especially in the dog days of summer. Day time is better than night for me. It doesn't matter if the tree is over 40' or 15' of water and believe me you will break off a lot of fish. Weight is very important as you want the bait to fall as slow as possible. Red or teaquilla color is also good, but I don't think color is all that important. My favorite lake to do it on is Truman.

My partner backed out at the last moment to fish the Friday night bass tournament so I decided to go it alone and spent the tournament hours in the dark in the timber in Maze creek. At about 9:30 I saw what I thought at first to be a vehicle pull into a West bank, but after about 30 minutes the blinding light was on a path straight toward me. I then realized by the sound it was either someone gigging or bow fishing. Other than the blinding light for about an hour whoever it was did have the courtesy to stop short of me by a 100 yards and change course to the other side of the lake. I felt pretty confident at that point with 3 keepers in the boat so I redirected my attention to the fishing, but low and behold moments later a pontoon boat with a load of people was on a course from the center of the lake in my direction. They were stopped short of me when they hit a tree a hunded yards out. Luckily they were going pretty slow so no damage was done to them or their boat, but there is one less standing tree to navigate in Maze. My complete inability to wrangle fish out of brush cost me three or four other pretty good fish weighing only the three caught before the mayhem There are a lot of good fisherman in these Friday nighters and most are bringing in limits.

Hope you had better luck than me. Put in at State Park and set up lights across the lake where the channel runs in. After about two hours of nothing the trip deteriorated into me and my fishing partner making owl and coyote calls. We attracked plenty of bait fish catching only a couple of little crappie and white bass. Water temp 85.5. Left at 1am and dodged possums and armadillos from State Park to Greenfield.

My last time was the report I posted on July 31. My preference has always been close to the channel typically over about 40' of water with the bait at the 15' range. Good luck, sounds like the best idea in this heat wave.

A little late, but last Thursday a friend and I went to Stockton and stayed at Southwinds at Ruark. Got on water at 9 p.m. Thusday night and set out lights for crappie over 40' of water and surprisingly had 8 nice slab crappie when we quit at 11. We didn't have minnows.The fish were caught 15' deep. I hand tied some 1/16 oz dark jigs (black and brown) and six were caught on those colors. We both were not having much luck directly under the light. Most fish were caught close to the outer limits of the light. Friday morning was a struggle until we found a couple of productive brushpiles in 25' of water N. of Mutton. Bobby Garland baits (cajun cricket and double rainbow) were the ticket for 10 more. We took out at 10 am. We pretty well stunk it up at the Friday night bass tournament weighing only three that weighed 6.5. All came on 10" red plastic worms. I just didn't have a good back up plan since my spots were catching heavy winds. I think there were 17 limits weighed so obviously the fishing was pretty good. Seems to me, only fishing it twice, that solid 2-2/12 pound fish with a 5 lb kicker will get you close most weeks.

I too really respect the fact that you have the class to report your mistake. This time of year I usually take a big cooler and ice the fish, which makes the counting easier, but with catfish you may need a pretty big cooler. Better yet, the last few years I have begun using a snap stringer to keep a count on fish. I tie a rope on the end of the snap stringer making it easier to pull it out of the live well. This is really helpful when the crappie fishing is extremely good. A friend of mine that catfishes a lot has even sharpened the tips of the snap stringer to make it easier to penetrate the mouth of his fish.