olfishead

Hey, If you're not careful you are going to have a parade following you around the lake! He He

Went out Tuesday after crappie, did catch a limit but it was not easy. Seemed like the fish were more scattered around, in and on over the BP's than they were Sunday pm.

There are two islands at the mouth of cedar creek on the Big Tebo arm of Truman lake that is not too far from the end of Benton county TT highway. The smaller west island is on the creek bank and the crappie fishing in that area was always fantastic. Go to the southern end of the island. I used to camp there when I lived up that way. You will have to paddle approximately 3/4 mile.

The first step in making white bass delicious is to sharpen your fillet knife so that you can cut the lateral line out completely and then "slice" off the remaining dark meat. Throw away those electric fillet knives and fillet fish like a man! By the way my bird dog loves the dark meat!

I lost my cell phone one year after walking several miles while turkey hunting on public land. (The ringer was off so as not to spook any turkeys.) I tried to retrace my steps but with no luck, but while doing so a turkey started gobbling close by and I was able to call him in, harvesting a nice 20 lb. bird. Later that evening my Mom called and told me that a mushroom hunter had called her and told her that he thought he had found her son's phone! He was from more than 50 miles away, but worked in Spfld. The next day I met him on his lunch break at a restaurant, bought him lunch, thanked him for his honesty, and got my phone back. What luck! A TRUE STORY!

Didn't lose one but You're a good man! Most would just add it to their arsenal!

My wife and I caught 15 nice (12-17 inch)white bass in an hour before the storm hit Thursday evening. They weren't as concentrated as before, more scattered smaller groups, so it took some limited "chasing" to stay within casting distance. Still a lot of fun! Fed the last batch to the folks at work, they loved them. I always like to cook my fish (any species) in peanut oil to give extra flavor. And, the peanut oil seems to capture the odor so it doesn't smell up the house as much.

Between Mutton Creek and the State park on the East side of the Lake. They were constantly on the move to the south (up the Lake) herding the forage fishes as they went!

Stockton actually went thru a few years that very poor shad production in the 90s. For what reason, no-one knows! I see you are from the Pomme area and you know what controls the WB #s in that lake. Bacterial infection hits there every 5-10 years and is usually associated with poor water quality (D.O) and fish stress due to influx of nutrients from a rainfall event.

Probably not that much of a concern until the lake experiences a poor production year of shad/forage fishes. And, by the way Truman is is a totally different beast than Stockton from the standpoint of fertility, turbidity(which affects the effectiveness of sight feeders and survival of offspring) and resultant productivity.

I went fishing on Stockton Saturday to try the walleye and crappie. Not much luck on those two. But, the white bass were going nuts! In an hour or so I limited out on 12-17 inch W. bass with several smaller ones released, and I had a blast doing it! Seems like I was the only one who took advantage of the fishing bonanza. Several boats came by that I'm sure saw the acres of surfacing WB but no-one stopped and joined in on the fun. I know that WB are not quite the table fare that walleye and crappie are, but with a little trimming of the fillets they can be pretty tasty and make excellent fish fry material for a neighborhood or work place fish fry. All you guys and gals out there who like to catch crappie and walleye should step back and think about how much the WB compete with crappie and walleye for food. While I was catching fish, one of the 12" WB threw up about 20 silver side minnows and shad that could have been eaten by the other two more desirable species. Consider the zillions of WB that are in the lake and the tons of forage fish they eat, (not to mention small crappie and walleye they eat) and you can see that these voracious predators can have a negative impact on the growth rates and densities of other sport fish species. Back in the early seventies when Stockton Lake was new, the MDC Fisheries Biologist pleaded with people to not bring WB in from other lakes because of the increased competition between species. His favorite saying was: "there are only so many groceries to go around". So, I encourage you when you are out there fishing, especially on a slow day, and the WB give you the opportunity to help manage your preferred fish population..................Take it!