eagle1584

If I'm looking for extra depth I'll use snap weights. I like the the version made by off shore tackle. They work the same as the inline weight but clip on your line with a clip like you would find on a planer board. Its a good way to clip on weight for depth but not have to tie anything inline. They have good charts and plenty of video on their website but you can really customize the weight and length of line you put out to get to the desired depth. The precision trolling guys are great too. They have an app for lure depths. I think the flickr shad chart is free but you can buy the data for any of your favorite lures. I learned a ton on how distance from the boat and diameter of line affects the depth. They claim speed has little to do with max depth which I found interesting. A little work on Google and you can sometimes find someone who has posted the chart for your favorite lure on a message board somewhere. Lastly, as Dan said, go buy yourself a lure retriever. Mine has paid for itself over and over. If you want to catch more fish you'll need to be down in or near the cover. It can be challenging to retrieve a lure at Stockton sometimes if it's windy but I rarely break one off anymore. I just have the cheap EZ lure retriever which you can buy at Bass Pro for around $15. Honestly one of the best purchases I've ever made for fishing.

I think it's important to find what works for you and the only way to do it is practice. I learned how to walleye fish in MN as a kid and it was all finesse stuff. Ultra light rods, small jig heads and minnows. I use a lighter approach to bottom bouncing at Stockton that works well for me as I don't like really heavy tackle (outside of jigging spoons) I tend to prefer trolling cranks for walleye because I like to cover more ground. When I do use a BB I use a 3/4 oz or at most 1 oz bottom bouncer and run a bit slower, usually between .4-.7 mph. I tie my own harnesses too so I add a small float or 2 to most of my harnesses to keep the hooks and bait just off the bottom. It seems to keep from getting snagged as much especially at slow speeds. I just got back from a week in Northern MN and fished with some guys that introduced me to the Lindy Lil' Guy harness. The float works just like a crank bait and has amazing action. We trolled them at 1.2-1.4 mph on 2 oz BBs and had good success on them. Kind of the best of both worlds. Can't wait to try them at Stockton with how good they bite cranks although they are a bit pricey. http://www.lindyfishingtackle.com/lindy-lil-guy As lmt out said they move around a lot depth wise. Stockton is a bit quirky and doesn't always follow what you think you know about walleye. Cover a lot of ground, change depths a lot and when you catch one try to figure out why it was there.

Great Job Dan! I have found that there will be quality walleye in 40' of water all year long at Stockton. I generally start in the 18-20' range but if I can't find them there I'll sneak out to 35-40' and generally find some fish. The fish I find in the deeper water tend to be higher quality too. I just don't always like to fish that deep, its a bit more work at times.

We put in Sunday at the Stockton ramp and fished from the Dam down to Price. I couldn't find a fish in anything shallower than 30' of water. We caught 2-15" smallmouth and a beefy 16" spotted bass on jigs while walleye fishing out deep. Finally found some walleye around noon all in 35'+. Ended up with 3 keepers and lost a couple at the boat. Not a horrible day once I kept reminding myself it is still February. Water was consistently around 47 and as clear as I've ever seen it.

Those are great! One of my favorite sites to look at is http://www.historicaerials.com/ They have a variety of old aerial photos similar to the modern Google Earth pictures as well as a variety of Topo Maps. They have the Stockton area in 1950. Be sure to click on the "compare" button where you can select 1950 on one side and a more modern image on the other and slide back and forth to compare. Zoom way in and you'll get a great look at the land before the lake was there. Great site to kill some time with. I've figured out why some of my favorite spots hold fish when I started looking around the pre-lake images

I find the walleye bite stays in similar spots all year round. I fish the lake a lot in the fall and stay on the same main lake shorelines and points in the fall. I concentrate on main lake shorelines that drop off rapidly. That lets me move around depths easily. In the fall I tend to start out in around 15'-18' and then move out deeper if I'm not getting bit. For whatever reason the walleye don't seem to school up at Stockton like they do up north so just keep moving. I've tried adjusting tactics for each season but still find my best success trolling cranks or pulling rigs. Just adjust the depth and the speed until you find them. Last October we started out 15' but ended up catching most in 18-22 feet but most Octobers 15 feet seems to be the magic number. Just keep moving and you'll find them.

x2 on the Bink's spoons, it's a nice product. Sell them out of Moline, IL but they were made for Bink's guide service on Norfork Lake. Lots of good youtube videos of Bink fishing them down there catching a bit of everything on them. As Dan said look them up if you have the time. He catches a lot of really nice walleye on them. I have a bunch of them but have not broken them out on Stockton. Talked about it quite a bit just never pulled the trigger. I've fished Norfork a couple times in the summer and fished these for hybrids and stripers in really deep water, sometimes down as deep as 100'. It was over 100 degrees last time I was there and the water was 22' high so we only managed a couple of hybrids but I'll definitely give it another chance this summer when things slow down everywhere else.

Kramr, I've always found the White Bass meat to be a bit "sensitive" unlike a lot of fish. Either be sure to keep them alive until you're ready to filet them or go right from the line on to ice. I've found that really helps. The meat seems to degrade really quickly for some reason. My grandpa always made us soak them in milk for a hour or so before we cooked them so I've continued that tradition but I'm not sure if it makes a difference or not. If you're eating a lot of walleye and crappie the meat will feel a bit different no matter what you do.

I tend to run a lot lighter weight and almost always use the long wire bottom bouncer. I generally use 3/4 or 1 oz but that's just my preference as I think I can feel them better and don't seem to get hung up as much. Of course that's all dependent on being able to keep your speed at .7 mph or less which isn't always easy to do. But if I need a 3 oz to keep her down in the wind I'll most likely be doing something else. I had an Indian guide in Canada one time who swore that the wire bottom bouncers created sound scratching across the rocks which pulled the fish in and he wouldn't use anything else. Seemed to be proven out in the 2 days we spent with him although it was a small sample size. I'll be at Stockton Fri-Sun and will post a report when I can.

I fish a lot of spinning rigs on bottom bouncers at Stockton, generally the 2 hook style with crawlers. I've had pretty good success doing that through the years at Stockton. I will typically troll those slow, around .7 mph on the GPS seems to be the hot zone. I've never winter fished on Stockton but from spring to fall I'll generally start in around 15' of water and move out from there trying to cover depths from 15-20'. I fish mostly in the main lake from around the state park/245 bridge area up to the Dam. The fish will be in different spots but I almost always start out on the shore lines with deep water nearby. Be sure to drag across the points as they will usually hold more fish. Pay attention if you catch and fish and note the depth and the structure where you catch them and repeat that in other places. If you are talking about a traditional Lindy Rig that's a little different. I grew up in Wisconsin and fish in Northern Minnesota regularly and up there a Lindy is mostly a long snell and a lindy bottom bouncer weight. We use them mostly with minnows and leeches as jig alternative when the fish don't want a lot of movement. I've never used them at Stockton because I have found a lot more success trolling spinning rigs or trolling cranks. For whatever reason they don't seem to stack up at Stockton and moving for me seems to be most effective. If you wanted to try that type of fishing I'm sure it would be effective. I'd concentrate on working around points in various depths trying to find them. Good electronics really helps finding them if you want to try that slow, vertical approach. Hope that helps. Message me if you have questions and I'll try to help.

I don't post very often but am on the forum probably more than I should be soaking up all the good info. Just felt compelled with all the crappie talk to take a minute and say I was reminded today how much I miss Sac River Jim's posts. Never met the guy in person but there are few guys who loved sharing his knowledge more than Jim. Whether in a post or a PM the guy kept few secrets and was happy to help people catch fish. Thanks to all who post all the updates, I've learned a lot over the years. Can't wait to be down there next weekend!

I have one of the lure retrievers with the chains that slides down the line that I picked up at BPS. Has saved me hundreds in lost crankbaits at Stockton alone. You just have to be patient and as someone mentioned it helps to have someone there to control the boat on a windy day. I was truly a skeptic but they do work. They are pretty heavy and I think most of the time they just knock the lure loose more than the chains catching the hooks. You do need to upgrade the line on it as the one that comes with it is too thin. To keep it all neat in the boat I bought a retractable dog leash from a discount store for about $5 and it works awesome. Had to be a bit creative to rig it on the retriever but I never have to mess with the line in the boat. I think mine has an 18' cord and is plenty stout to hold up. This is the one I have and for the price it works great. http://www.basspro.com/EZ-Lure-Retriever/product/44428/

I saw one out there on that camera at about 9 am in the blinding snow! It just looked painful

I don't post much here since I only get down to the lake once or twice a year so I thought I'd share my experience from the weekend. I get a lot from everyones posts so thanks for all the info! We fished near Crabtree on Saturday afternoon until after dark and on Sunday morning until noon. We started trolling deep cranks and picked up a few short smallies and a couple short walleye. Most of the fish came off the ends of steep banks where it was transitioning to shallower flats. On a whim we threw a wacky rig right up on shore near the buck brush and surprisingly caught a lot of fish. That continued straight through Sunday noon even with bright sunny sky. They were hitting it right when the worm hit the water so I suspect a spinner bait would have done just as well but why switch when you have a good thing going! We didn't really expect to pick them up so shallow this time of year with all the deep fish reports out there. Only about 4 or 5 keepers with the biggest being 18". The majority of fish we caught were smallies just under 15" which is good news for the next few years. It looks like they are going strong. All told we had a much better than expected 24 hours based on what we read from reports. Caught 1 keeper walleye on a crank but really didn't target them much when we got into the bass with the limited amount of time. I will say the saturday afternoonjet skiers, pleasure boaters and tubers were almost unbearable up by the dam. I hope to get back down in October when they will be gone.

I have the DSI/GPS version. I picked it up at Xmas time but haven't water tested it yet. Will be on Stockton this weekend and can give you more feedback after that. I can give you some of my initial observations though about the units. It is a bit small and I would expect that you won't use it a lot in the split screen mode. In split screen with the GPS turned on the screen gets pretty cluttered by the speed, temp, depth etc. You can customize the screen pretty easily leaving those things on the screen that you need. I like the temp, depth and speed on mine since I troll a lot. It's pretty easy to toggle through the modes with 2 quick button pushes though. The color screen is really nice and clear and really easy to read. I messed with the GPS quite a bit when I installed last weekend. It found satellites really quickly which I've had issues with on a previous unit. The preloaded maps have decent details of Stockton and many of the other lakes. Mine also came with the Lake Insight Map for the US. It has a lot of detail and honestly maybe more detail than I need in a map. On that small screen you have to zoom in pretty tight not to clutter the map with contours. I'm sure there is some more settings that will allow me to customize that piece of it as well but I've not looked that hard for them. I was able to easily download all the brushpiles from the MDC site on my pc and add them to the unit using a micro SD card. It took all of about 3 minutes of my time. It also seems really easy to quickly store a waypoint if you want by just pressing "enter" twice. There is no "man overboard" type button like some of the larger units but it's pretty simple to do. All in all the unit exceeded my out of the box expectations. I put it on the front deck with the transducer on the trolling motor as I have a larger unit on the console. Mine came with a trolling motor mount in the box. I have no experience with DSI but I thought this was a low cost opportunity to try it out. I was lucky enough to pick it up with a $100 Lowrance rebate so it cost me $169 out of pocket. I'm not too concerned with the DSI because I concentrate on structure more than looking for fish other than bait shad. I always seem to get frustrated when I'm marking fish and can't catch them anyhow. I'll update you after I try it out but so far for what it cost me I'm optimistic

I've been reading all the great info on this site for the past year and just got back from my 2nd trip to Stockton and thought I'd weigh in We fished out of the State Park on Sunday and Monday all day. We caught all of our fish on the main lake and almost nothing past the first 50 feet or so of a cove. As someone said almost every fish we caught, Walleye, Smallmouth, and Largemouth all came at 20'. We also caught a lot of really nice white bass on anything we threw. Trolled a lot of crankbaits and rigs but did the most damage vertical jigging nightcrawlers on main lake points. Only managed one crappie in 2 days trolling a crankbait. I wish I was going this weekend! It feels like the lake is on the verge of really turning on.