waterpossum

I don't see much problem launching there. If you go north you will encounter some trees on the west and east side about 1.5 to 2 miles from the ramp. If you go back south under the CC bridge just take your time. you may not want to venture much more than a mile that way until you learn it a little better. I hope you can keep him occupied with some kind of fish. Good luck. This is one marvelous lake that has a lot to offer other than the fishing.

That Friday Nighter is a lot of fun. A great bunch of guys that obviously know how to fish better than me. The cloud cover obstructed the water some, but shone thru while we were fishing over by Masters just long enough so we could watch a deer paddle across a cove we were fishing. May see you somewhere on the lake this fall. I have the gray 19' Tracker with 90 hp Mercury. Good fishing to you also.

You and I have fished the Friday nighters out of State Park for the last few months so I guess we have seen a lot of water. Most of the summer I was running into the Big Sac arm sometimes as far as Ruark. It can get kind of spooky on Stockton in the dark, but there is just enough focal points to navigate the water. Still freaks me a little when approaching the bridges

Your report sounds like a carbon copy of ours on Wednesday from 9 am to 2‌:30 pm. We hit about 7-8 brush piles with no luck. Tried hardwood and bridge piers and caught two small Kentucky bass on the piers. I guess they are suspended over deep water gorging on this years fry. I used to do pretty good in August flipping a jig passed 10-15' hardwoods and letting it swing back into the tree, but we tried that in only one place in Son's without luck.

I have done a bit of night fishing this summer, mostly out of State park and Ruark. Ruark has a great light for loading and unloading as does State Park. From what I can see Hawker and Cedar Ridge at the park looks illuminated pretty good. Any info on other launch ramps i.e. Crabtree, High Point Orleans Trail, CC, Old State Park, Mutton North and South?

That's a great catch for only 3hrs of fishing

Thanks for that information. I have been expecting they would resurface the h highway bridge at Ruark because it is a mess. They resurfaced the y highway bridge a year or two ago and it is fine.

Not many reports about light fishing. Did talk to a guy that had caught a few tied up to the 245 bridge over the channel .

Yes, I check this data before going to the lake.

USGS 06918990

I figured we caught about 17 bass with one keeper, at that ratio we only needed 68 more fish for a limit.

That was the story for us also, minus the drum. We threw our one keeper back and hightailed it at 12:30. I think it took about 13 lbs to win with a few others weighing about 11 lbs. Star gazing was great though.

First day in a long time that they didn't pull water. Lake started the day at 869.30 and currently is 869.33. Thanks for the report.

Yes it has and they are probably going to keep pulling at least until it reaches 867.00. On July 22 the level was 873.40 at 10:30 this morning it was 870.56. Dropping at about 4" a day at the current rate.

Can you see braided line after dark using your moon glow light or whatever light you use?

They have consistently been pulling 3-4" a day for about two weeks now so I think by mid August you will be back on a decent crappie pattern.

Saw a few surfacing on the flats across from Chicken Rock yesterday right before dark.

Good report. At the current rate of water release, the lake will have gone down about 3' over the last week. With nothing better to do I have given my vain attempt to calculate just how much acreage Stockton was holding at 875 . At 867 the acreage is 25,000. Am I right to calculate that at 875 the acreage is 37,000? Maximum acreage at 892 is 66,960.

I hope they didn't have to handle the crap

I haven't tried it in a couple of years, because I am no fan of blistering heat crappie fishing, but for those out, you might try Carolina rigging minnows with a floating jig head off the ends of the flats. Locating schools of fish with a graph is vital and playing with leader length sometimes helps.

I went up to light fish Monday night. Caught two nice crappie right off the bat setting over 45' near a channel bend north of Mutton Creek. After about two hours of nothing I relocated inside Mutton over brush in 35' still nothing by midnight . Gave up and headed to the house. I just think there is so much bait of all sizes fishing may be hard until the lake recedes at least a couple of feet. Water temp was 85.5. Only saw two boats out. One light fishing the bridge at Ruark (they gave it up pretty early)

I understand the habitat argument, but am convinced there is much more underlying problems that have yet to be identified. My grandpas 100 acres in the 70's had more quail than the 5,000 acres at Bushwhacker. I see absolutely no quail when driving country roads. In my last ten years driving to Stockton to fish I have yet to see a quail. In the winter an average trip to the lake I will see 50 hawks and at least five or six dead raccoons and the same number of dead possums. I am definitely in favor of habitat restoration, but if there's not a quail within 20 miles it's a pretty longshot that any results will show up anytime soon

You might consider saving to favorites the topic Zaraspook posted on July 6 for reference on water levels.

I would tend to agree with Aggressor about the fishing after viewing the lake yesterday. Some of the locals that fish the lake regularly have seen these conditions in the past and will probably know some key areas that will produce a flipping bite. I have a couple of spots where I did find a concentration of fish, but that was a week ago. The Rummel boys and Jay Carter and Troy Ayers are pretty salty on this lake and would be my favorites to weigh good bags. Just looked at lake level chart and Stockton is approaching + 9'

Bagley Balsa DB2 or DB3