Heretolearn

You have done much better than me this year. I haven't caught a keep walleye in 6 weeks. Lots and lots of shorts though. Also catching a lot more short crappie than keepers. Keep up the good work! I still need to set up a guided trip with you. I do have a couple of days off in September if you are not already booked. Please send a PM if you have some free time.

Jeff Faulkenberry-I don't know if he is still guiding, but he would be a good choice as well.

I usually catch my shad at Pomme near Bolivar Landing. I don't have a go to place on Stockton though.

Slow fishing again this afternoon for me with jigs, but kept 6 and threw back twice that many. The whites are still full of eggs and I threw back a couple of 9 inch whites that were busting with eggs. The blacks that I caught tonight had spawned.

Apparently the minnow bite has been decent/good. My first trip was Wednesday evening and it was slow with jigs. Caught about an equal number of shorts to the 5 nice keepers. It's enough for a good meal for us. Last year I would have limited in less time than it took to catch these 5. None of the females that I caught had spawned yet, but looked very close.

Thanks for this thread! I hadn't thought about the protective function of the male crappie and their importance to the little crappie making it and the future population. I will probably keep more females than I used to.

I guess there was a big shad kill on Pomme with the ice. At least per my buddy who went fishing on Saturday on Pomme.

Indirectly it probably does secondary to less fertility and less baitfish + baitfish can be found and eaten easier at a smaller size compared to it's nearby lakes - Pomme and Truman where larger crappie are caught regularly and have a lower length limit. A hog will only grow if it can eat enough to grow. Increase biomass of eaters without increasing food is not the recipe for more consistent and bigger crappie. If fertility of the water and clarity were equal, we probably would not have such a long and enjoyable thread about this. Truman, where the biggest crappie come from, also has more cover. Pomme and Stockton seem pretty close on this variable. I am sure there are other variables as well. Cover and feed source seem to be much more important that length limit locally. For clarity, I am not a fishery biologist and I fish mainly Pomme and Stockton. My observation is that Pomme has far more shad than Stockton and the few times that I have been to Truman, I note more schools of shad than I do on Stockton. Hopefully someone with real numbers will chime and prove or disprove this theory.

Indirectly it probably does secondary to less fertility and less baitfish + baitfish can be found and eaten easier at a smaller size compared to it's nearby lakes - Pomme and Truman where larger crappie are caught regularly and have a lower length limit. A hog will only grow if it can eat enough to grow. Increase biomass of eaters without increasing food is not the recipe for more consistent and bigger crappie. If fertility of the water and clarity were equal, we probably would not have such a long and enjoyable thread about this. Truman, where the biggest crappie come from, also has more cover. Pomme and Stockton seem pretty close on this variable. I am sure there are other variables as well.

If the forage base was better, then a longer length limit would make more sense. Increasing the forage needs by increasing length limit and biomass of crappie would be to the detriment of other predators - including the growth rate of crappie. The change for LL of spotted bass has dramatically increased the number of largemouth and smallmouth that I have accidently caught and size of those fish has increased too-including my PB largemouth at ~6 1/2 lbs. This year I hardly caught any spotted bass and I basically fished the same areas as the last 3 year. I wonder what impact-if any-this population shift will have on the crappie and walleye populations though.

I think the clear water on most of Stockton presents a unique challenge to crappie growth and other management. Pomme and Truman produce a lot more large fish than Stockton and their LL is 9 inches. I get pictures of 16 inch + crappie on Pomme de Terre multiple times a year and have caught several 15+ inch crappie on Pomme. Last year two years average size was better for me at Stockton, but biggest fish (and lots of little fish) come from the lake with the lower LL. I finally fished at Truman this Spring it was awesome, but I didn't catch any big crappie. Size varied a lot fish to fish like Pomme. I did see a couple of 18 inch crappie that sure looked huge to me though.

14.5 inches x 3 last year - all white crappie. Average size was better for me this year, but I caught a lot less crappie on Stockton this year.

Thanks for the update and looks like the drum bite was on. The water was extremely still and I usually don't have much luck in calm waters. Congrats! Ron

The good fish were hitting 2-3 weeks ago. I had my best run of 4 trips ever for size. These were over a 9 days. Nothing huge, but consistent. The craziest thing was that the 4th of July was the slowest traffic day of the summer so far and it is usually the busiest in my experience(which is only the past 3 years). I had to fish most of the day yesterday to get 3 keepers, but it was fun. I caught 7 shorts. The catfish were hitting crazy early and then hit a run of drum later on.

I have not been bass fishing, but am regularly catching large mouth and a few smallies, but have not caught a Kentucky/spot yet this year. Last year I kept and ate quite a few. Earlier in the year I caught a lot of small mouth.

Sorry, no report here, I haven't been to Pomme in weeks.

I guess I need to add a fishing trip to the north and eating Pike to my bucket list. I have never had one, but walleye are my favorite fish to eat. I can't imagine that they are better, but would like to be proven wrong.

If you are wanting to catch a limit, I would wait until they quit dropping the lake so much. Once they start letting out ~6 inches a day, my luck fishing for them dramatically drops. It's more fishing and a whole lot less catching. There are a lot better fisherman on this site than me, but that has been my experience over the past 2 years and the same trend on both Pomme and Stockton.

I have just been able to start fishing again about 3 years ago. 25 1/2 inches is the best that I have done on Stockton Lake. I caught a 7 lb walleye on a Shad Rap in the 1980's where I grew up and river fishing. My dad caught a couple of 10 lbers and my brother caught a 9 lber. My grandfather caught the biggest on a minnow - a 14 lb walleye in the late 70's. The mount is still at my parents.

Thanks for the response! Where would l look for the MDC prospectus?

Do you know when they do the census/crappie sampling and sample other gamefish? Several on this site state that recruitment is better during a flood and it makes sense + I know at Pomme last fall and early this spring near the dam, there were crazy numbers of shad, so I think their recruitment was excellent last year. I am curious how well the actual spawn went for the other species. Also does it usually take 2-3 years before we have a good idea how the spawn really went for game fish? I do know when I fished on the Sac River below Caplinger earlier this spring, I have never caught so many little walleye. They must of done well on that part of the river last year or they just all stacked up in the creek where I stopped. Same for the little white bass. I was fishing 2 jigs and had multiple doubles.

I am beginning to worry about the spawn this year. This past weekend I was trolling and turned in 60 feet of water ~200 yards from bank and caught a nice white female crappie full of eggs about 18 feet down. She was at least 150-200 yards from the bank. Most of the fish that I have caught have not spawned and are busting with eggs and in good flesh. Do we have any experts that have an educated guess when the crappie will give up on spawning. Several more senior friends tell me that they aren't going to spawn this year and that the spawn last year was very weak by the fish they caught. Thanks!

I have only caught one short walleye trolling on Pomme. My son caught a nice one 3 years ago with a crappie jig and that's it for my family on Pomme. I did catch several nice catfish trolling last year on Pomme - including a 10 lb channel. That was fun!

I was north of Lightfoot boat ramp and it was much muddier than I anticipated and it was as busy as the 4th of July or busier. Crappie fishing was very slow, but did catch several baby bass. There were at least 10 different boats water skiing in the 2-3 miles that I roamed. It is way too cold for me to swim, but I hope they had fun and not too many sunburns. There was a crazy amount of waves from the boat traffic. The middle of the week will hopefully be better in regards to boat traffic and waves.

Congratulations! I haven't gotten to fish for walleye at Stockton yet this year. I was planning on going today, but the water report and boat traffic report made me change my mind and I went crappie fishing at the Muddy Mississippi, I am mean Pomme de Terre. We caught a few, but nothing like last week.