Bird Watcher

lol Been catching them for 20 years. Sometimes there's more, sometimes you gotta know where to look for them. some years they are everywhere. 1 million fry is not quite the load of fish you think it will be. Lots of loss to negative flow and turbidity in that lake. I'd take 250k fingerlings from 17 all day long. I see they only have the stocking reports archived back to '10. There were a couple of large stockings of fry and fingerlings in the lake between 2007-2010. Just can't remember the years. you could catch them schooling mid lake with the white bass at times following those stockings. It was the same back in the 90s. that's about as far back as I have memory catching them. It was definitely better for a few years afterwards and became tougher as they aged out. I've had days this year that I've caught 30-50 of them between 12-15". I can only guess that's the stocking from 2017. I'll tell you this though. I've seen some things with recruitment on that lake that convince me they successfully spawn at times. No shortage of jumbo pure strain white bass though, so not sure if I'm ready to put a tin foil hat on and start killing "mutts" with fishinwrench. I'mma go back to lurking now.

Ran into a school around point 5 about 10 am. Ended up catching 6 on planers and freelines. Big fish was 41” and 25.5#

Yes he did. It was a fair deal. He actually had me delay the purchase for a few weeks because he knew there was an incentive coming for an extra year of warranty. Meant 6 years in lieu of 5. He didn't have to do that.

The Marine Center in Joplin is a Suzuki dealer. Just bought a DF175 from him this winter. He's been a Suzuki dealer for around 20 years or so.

And the student becomes the master....nicely done?

Not to be too ambiguous or high level, but yeah, just about anywhere. 15-20' is a short cast or less along a lot of channel banks and points. Almost all of the campgrounds that I can think of have multiple main lake points adjacent to the channel. Study this map if you don't already have it. under "map options", set your safety depth at 20' max and some spots in areas that you are familiar with should jump out at you. If you need more help send me a pm and I'll show you some spots I've caught them lately. https://webapp.navionics.com/?lang=en#boating/mapOptions@8&key=wtcdFvzi{P

Made it out about 5:30 yesterday evening after work. Had a limit in 45 minutes. ended up with one more keeper, 3 shorts and two crappie and left at 7:30. all on BB and crawler harness. 15-20' .9mph I intentionally targeted channel swing points in a part of the lake that I have never fished for postspawn walleye in years past. It didn't matter if it was in a creek arm or on the main lake I caught fish on all of them I fished. The lake is just on fire for walleye right now. Everyone I talk to is catching them too. I've never seen it like this in the 26 years or so I've been fishing Stockton. good luck

Lol, hang around here long enough and it just seems like anything I would have to say interesting has already been said. That and I mostly look at the site on my phone. my free time for forum browsing rarely comes on the laptop in the living room like the old days and its hard to get these fat fingers to type legibly on the iPhone. I hear ya. 15-20 years ago I spent I don't know how many nights between crabtree and the dam trying to catch "a" walleye...uno, lol. Nowadays I fill that niche with Stripers...you wanna talk about a waste of time and money on meaningless goals...I have enjoyed following your journey though. I'm glad you got it done.

Ended up fishing in the same spot as the walleye legend himself, lmt out, last Sunday 4/16. In a quick chat he mentioned OA and putting reports up. I haven't put one up in years so this one is for you lmt out! Had Yesterday off, planned to go Turkey Hunting in the am, but my precious baby girls had other plans when they kept us up all night. Momma and her two minions were pretty grumpy so I hung around the house to help the morning get back on schedule. After all of that was taken care of, what to do with my day off? Walleye are biting. Might as well go to Stockton. Report: Went back yesterday 4/17 and it was a lot different bite. The fish were 9-12' deep and very slow. We ended up with 11 keepers, but it seemed a lot slower than that. We fished everything that we've been fishing the last two weeks and had 1 keeper. We finally bailed on fishing history and located them on a main lake point with our electronics but it was hard to get them to commit to the BB and harness. Ended up catch half of them vertically jigging our bottom bouncers and spinners on the turn at the end of each pass. Probably should have switched to a spoon or a jig and crawler, maybe even a 110+ jerkbait to get that reaction bite. Oh well, what we did worked, but it felt a lot more like work.lol 25 keepers in 4 trips. It seems like this is the year that the intensive walleye stockings are starting to pay off.

Just fantastic bh. How about you?

fishmor I sent you a private message.

Quill, I don't. FWIW, I'd still consider myself a striper novice with less than 100 fish caught, but I do throw a custom made 2.5 ounce spoon at Hybrids on Truman, a lot. It out produces live bait by a large margin on a lot of days. It kind of depends on if the fish are positive, neutral, or negative. If they are suspended and neutral it seems like the spoon produces better than shad for me. It gets a reaction bite and a lot of times they like to nip the tail of your shad when they aren't super hungry. When they do the same to that big spoon they get the feathered treble right in their lips. I've never fished any of the big flutter spoons though.

Man, I just don't know. I went down there on Saturday afternoon. Launched at Rocky Branch. I thought it would be a madhouse because I'm sure everyone saw the same report I did from FF on his facebook page (thanks Scott)...I was the only trailer there. I didn't even pull up to the ramp until 3:30 because I had to spend 3 hours at my secret shad catching spot. motored out from the ramp, turned on the graph and ran over a big school of shad with fish under it in about 50-60 fow. I'm always thrown off on Beaver because most of the time, especially in the clear water, I just don't see the densities of bait and fish that I see on other lakes so I have to recalibrate myself. After looking at two other areas I wanted to graph I decided that right where I started was the best I was going to find. Set up one pass with the wind, downlines and planers, nada, thought I was pulling them too fast at .8mph. I could see a couple come up and chase my shad on the graph but no dice. flipped it around and went into the wind at .3mph and it was game on. Caught 3 fish in 30 minutes on dowlines 30 feet deep in 55 fow. saw mulitiple chasers on top but I was bowed up on fish and couldn't get a cast to them. I did have a boat chase my bent rod after the 2nd and after the 3rd fish I realized that I had a wiring fault and my lights weren't going to work so had to leave them biting at sundown. It sucks that I left my house at 10 am and only fished for an hour at dark, but nothing like a flurry of fish to make the end justify the means. Just a .02 doc, I don't get to pick premium days to fish anymore. My job usually requires more than 40 a week and with a young family at home, I just go when I can. I quit worrying about the things out of my control like weather,other fisherman, and big recreational boats. If momma will cover the parental duties for the afternoon, I just try to pick a spot within 2.5hrs of home that I stand the best chance of catching a big fish. There were wake surfing boats out and cruisers and a couple of other fisherman, but it wasn't anything like fishing in front of the dam on Truman on the 4th of July. It could be better, but it could be worse too. I've just never seen the crowds on Beaver that some of you speak of, but I also fish Grand and Truman a lot so maybe we have differing perspectives I do know that I've caught all of my biggest fish while fishing, so at some point you just have to fishing if you're going to catch one. I came out of lurking/posting retirement just to post this part fishing report, part motivational speech.

We'll do Marty. You need one of these little motors. I have had more fun with my little boat and mud motor this summer than I have with the Bay Boat. Brings out the kid in me and puts a big smile on my face just to drive it. Plus, I can go to the river or creek and I don't need a shuttle. The little one is such a sweet baby. She obviously takes after her Daddy. Her big sis and Mom are as mean as a couple snakes though. Sorry Daryk Campbell Sr. Didn't mean to hijack your thread!!

I just had a gap in my portfolio. I needed something for shallow, flooded, weedy, marshes. I've always leaned too heavily on my 4R buddies for this type of hunting. Besides, that's not the only marsh around. I really enjoyed my solo ventures last year. A renaissance movement of less is more, if you will. I've had the idea of re-purposing a used gheenoe as a layout boat for awhile and when I came across one on CL labled "Canoe boat 80$" I jumped on it. On a related note, I might have had a true stroke of genius when I designed the blind. I'll let you know after a season of use if it's the real deal or not. Besides, the wife says I'm irresistible when I drag home another boat to throw in the yard.