freefallin

Actually most of the game fish are on their way up following the shad that are heading towards cooler water now. The fish I was catching in 12-15 water are now much closer to the banks in somewhat shallow water near deeper water. I suspect that the thermocline this summer was in the 25 to 30 foot range as fish were definitely suspended most of the summer around 12' to 20' or so. Makes for tough fishing or only catching early mornings or late evenings. Suspended fish are "not" actively feeding and are the most difficult to catch. As the shad move more shallow this will excite the game fish and they will follow hiding near structure waiting for a school of tasy baitfish to wander by. Additionally in the fall and spring they are motivated to fatten up so the feeding activity can be all day and not just a few hours early and late. Been fishing Stockton about 45 years now and It has been my personal spring and fall experience/observation at Stockton that larger fish are most often less than 100 yards from deep water. Channel swings in any major creek (creek that continues on where lake ends) will hold large schools of fish this time of year. Hope this helps and have some fun. ff

This time year with the cooler nighttime gradually dropping the water temps down the shallower water creeks will reach 70 and lower more quickly drawing the shad pods to begin moving toward cooler water so you are on the right track and Sons holds fish year round. I recently spent an entire day in Maze creek. As the sun gets higher mid day every main lake point on this lake holds spots and brown fish. Square bills, lipless, underspin, Keitech style swimbaits or anything that matches the shad will produce. The last few weeks most of my keepers have been on top water, 8" black worm or black/blue jig and chunk. Hope this helps, best of luck and have some fun out there! ff

yo red, Is this a team tag match? 😎 ff

Off to bed now but had a wacky worm kind of day! 😎 Good numbers. Fall is coming.

Well if I fished any slower I might just go back in time.. it takes me 15 minutes to uncross my eyes to drive the boat back to the marina from staring at the bow in my line waiting for that tiny tick. Catching fish pretty well on main lake points and the first secondary point but no further in. Water temps are 77/78 about 4 foot clarity with good color. Eked out a limit today but yesterday could only catch 3 that were solid keeps which meant not having to measure to know. Only one keeper fish was not on some sort of finesse bait. Probably Keitechs or Rage Tails on 1/4oz jig or under spin were my best performers. I threw spinner bait, lipless and 8” worm with very limited success and pretty much fished finesse about 8 hours each day. I did not catch a keeper fish shallow or on wood. Volkswagen sized rocks near 30-40 foot channels were my best areas. And I stayed on them a lot longer than usual hoping to catch maybe one more. I do think they are transitioning off summer holding pattern and slowly migrating up the depths. Just need some cooler air temps and rain. I never do as well during low water. i am trying to upload this from my phone as I am still sitting here in the boat tonight taking a break and rigging up tackle for tomorrow Actually I am not sure if this or any of the few pics I took will make it up to OA. i would definitely pick the Big Sac arm for keeper size fish. At least this week anyway. Probably numbers too. ’

Decided to head over tomorrow (Monday) and look for some dumb fish that got caught Saturday in the tournaments. Going to hit a few marinas and maybe like a blind squirrel catch a big one who recently got released! 😎 Best Tom

Fished Lil Sac yesterday for about 10 hours. Quite a bit of boat traffic and had to play nice and share a lot of bank. Heavy chop in the afternoon when the winds changed. Water temp came up 3 degrees from last week (77/78) to (80/81). Trolling motor on high bouncing up and down and was very hard to detect the bites. I probably missed a bunch. Drug rubber worms for 4 hours before I finally got the skunk out. Power fishing be darn so: got out the fairy wand with 6 pound flouro. Water has cleared up a lot this week. The white bass fishing was actually pretty good and caught some nice fatties. Brown and blacks were only fair with decent numbers (14 mostly 12" maybe two keeps) for how bad it has been the last month or so. Agreed, last year was a whole lot more fun "but easy now", hang on there we are only 10 degrees away from spinnerbaits. Caught not a fish shallow but suspended at about 12' in 25 to 35' of water mostly points when the main channel was running down that bank. Fishing slow, I mean slow swimming 3/16th oz finesse baits with occasional stops and shakes. As the baits would get torn up I would use it down to about an inch long and maybe got more bites on the mere morsels. I save all my old torn up craws and use the little what's left over nubs as finesse trailers rather than opening a new bag of senko baits all the time. With this cool weekend will probably head over Tuesday or Wednesday and see what might have moved up into those creeks.

It was 77/78 last week on both Sacs but with this weeks heat spell most likely 79 to 80. I am heading over about 5 in the morning and hoping to get on the water about 6:30 and up the Little Sac and try to find a few. Actually the early summer topwater bite has been almost decent before it goes into lock down for the rest of the day.

2017 Crestliner PT 18 Mercury 150HP Four Stroke We are call her "Swoosh" cuz she moves without hardly making any sound! Kept at State Park and always 5 minutes from being in the water.

Since moving my boat to a lift at State Park I have been in uncharted Little Sac waters at least for me. Fished Sunday eve, Monday and Tuesday morning. Resisted the urge to head way south on the Big Sac and stayed up north learning some new water. The early morning topwater bite (plop and frog) was not too bad as when you would catch one you might catch another or two if you picked up the worm rod before moving on. As pleasant as the weather was Monday the fishing was tough (maybe a bass or two per hour) and I gave up on anything but a 3/16th oz shakey head and a 4" skinny worm eventually going through everyone I had in the black silver shad color. I did catch a couple of manly big ole' bluegills on a wacky rig with short skinny worm. The shad are everywhere especially shallow but only a few of the fish I caught were in less than 15' of water. Definitely suspended and with the water nearing 76 hopefully moving up. Main lake points, RB, and a couple of swings in Hawker kept me from falling asleep if I kept my bait small and slow moving. Strikes were very suttle with the exception of top water blow ups. This morning started out with a frenzy with good top water bite on the bluffs straight across from State Park which lasted about 30 minutes. A couple of my keeper fish were brown and more aggressive destroying my little fragile worms on each bite. So to sum it up: 3/16th oz shakey head and a 4" black silver skinny worm around large submerged boulders (good) 8" Blue black plastic flat tail worm sloooow on main lake points (fair) Bright red lipless crank (less than fair but scored) Plopper (good) Booyah frog (fair) White 3/8 oz spinnerbait (fair) Only going to get better as it cools down. Best.

Agreed... I was on the water (State Park to Hawker only) Thursday morning before the storm and had the best topwater bite so far this summer. (spook and whopper) Just beat the hard rain in and boat up on hoist before the sky just dumped. Water temps in the upper 70's. Fished hard Wednesday mostly main lake points on little sac with maybe a fish an hour. Tough going Wednesday but Thursday gave me some hope to get out of this years tough summer bite. Thanks for sharing...

Quick report Took the grandson out Tuesday overcast and light rain. Beautiful fishing day. Primarily Little Sac secondary channel swings and main lake points. Maybe a dozen brown fish and Kentucky ( probably no true keepers) with the bite shutting down, completely down (nada bump) as soon as the sun came out and the wind stopped. Caught most on lipless, underspin, shakey head and wacky. The shad are definitely schooled up and relatively shallow. Bass are not shallow. All of our fish were caught in 25' + suspended 8-15 foot. Water color was good but very warm 88-90. Threw top water at dusk with nary a blow up. Slow rolled a single spin for a bit after dark nada. I might add did not catch a single fish out of timber. Chunk rock, 45 degree and medium boulders rendered maybe a couple of fish an hour. If you can find them I think you can catch them as they are likely schooled up and suspended. Going to re-spool with 8-10 pound flouro this weekend and give it a go on Monday and NED, shakey and wacky only. Without wind or at least some moving water I do not think I could catch a cold.

I will be heading over to OTM as well but not sure if I will get out on the water as I have to de-install the old MotorGuide and install the new mondo heavy MotorGuide. The Avalanche is up on a lift so maybe it won't take all day. If I do get out on the water I will be in a white on white Avalanche throwing jigs, underspins and spinner baits. Here's to blue skies and tight lines.

Thursday was an absolute gorgeous day to be on Stockton. My catch numbers were down from Wednesday but the quality of fat fish was memorable. Fished out of OTM and saw lots of boats. Good numbers caught at RB, Hawker, and Old State Park cove. Pretty much anywhere off the main lake in about 20' of water casting to 8' or so. Largest fish definitely nailed the a rig especially when I scaled down the dummy baits and upscaled the main bait. Pretty steady action on cheap knock off jerk baits, bait ball cranks and blue-black jig. Just a lot of fun and reasonable pretty steady action which never let me sit down.

I was in the dam area to Old State Park all day. Crystal clear and 862.6. Never saw any color. 54.3 to 55.6 depending on depth. Bite was "almost" steady but a lot of work due to a stiff NW wind. Caught a lot of small fish with maybe two keeps. Mostly whites and Kentucky's.

Heading over tomorrow for a couple days of A rig. Not even worried about results.

Could someone post information about this series? TIA

i am having a field day right now. A rig catching all species out of OTM, Price, RB etc.. Primarily whites, blacks and Kentucky. Love spring,

Very good and sound advice. My albeit less than stellar story involves two months in intensive care, nearly a year in a wheelchair, no income for two years and tens of thousands of existing medical debt and picking the wrong things to cut back on. Got a great insurance guy I just did not give him enough business last year.

Good news is that somebody is going to get an amazing deal on a scratched Avalanche! In my modest opinion the finest bass boat ever sold! Unfortunately I did not insure the 9 year old Avalanche

Well Spent the morning working on my once beautiful white Avalanche. It was hit very hard by upper dock structure. Lots of very deep scratches (almost penetrating the cowling) deep. Hydrofoil broken and extremely noisy Trim/tilt. Motor and rear casting area heavily scratched. Slight bulge below motor mount on lower transom. Was told in person and on the phone it is your boat and your responsibility and not OT. The boat did run and trim albeit something is in a jam from the screeching sounds. Only fished two spots and only to check out the boat and I did catch some fish just not the pot bellies that would have been honored to be pulled into a beautiful pristine Avalanche just like the one I used to own. Could not even close my eyes last night without seeing my trashed boat.

Well I drove over today to Orleans Trail today to fire up the Avalanche with visions on fat bellied basses. Well when I got there the dock had fallen on it. With the sensation of a big bad stomach punch I walked away. Going to camp and chill and tomorrow see if she is fishable. Dock owner said no insurance on my boat...

Well I had a mixed day today. When I got to OTM my white Avalanche was setting in the water and not on the HydroHoist. No worries as it started in half of an eye blink. Picked up some fish right away in RB and on then on main lake points in about 15 to 20 foot of water. Mostly Kentucky's with maybe a couple measuring up. Think I was possibly fishing too deep. Was throwing jerkbait and a 3/8 oz brown jig most of the time. The bite was very soft and usually just a little bit of drag on my baits. Had to leave and get back to Fort Scott so hopefully the maintenance workers will get my boat back up on the lift. Anybody going by OT might take a quick look and verify the white Avalanche is up on the lift in slip 117. Will not be back on the water till the coming weekend. Saw a lot of shad in the back of a couple of coves that I wish I had more time to investigate. All in all a great start to 2017 and putting a few fish in the boat.

Heading over to OT Monday/Tuesday excited to get back on the water. If you see a white Avalanche come on over and say hey!

Very interesting to report the water seemed to clear overnight with the much cooler temps and: I had at least a dozen bass follow my spinnerbait all the way to the boat and never take a strike at it. Number of hookups were way down. Worked hard to maybe catch 5 or 6. Had to cinch in the swelled head as it was tough today wind and all.