Moflash

Binks spoons also work great this time of year

Nice fish!

This has been a strange spring for Crappie.

You will enjoy the Ulterra just make sure to update to the latest software.I have had mine for about a year and it is nice to be able to deploy and stow from my Helix screen.

3/31/2018 this is the largest Smallie that I have caught on Stockton Lake .A solid fiver taken off a bluff cut on a ultralight with 4lb fluorocarbon line.

Sunday I fished from State park Marina to the dam and surface temps were 38.5 to 40 degrees

Water temps need to come up to mid 40's for the spawning action to start.

Over the last 35 years of fishing Stockton Lake on a regular basis I have watched the boat traffic on the lake both fishing boats (more fisherman more pressure)and pleasure craft increase dramatically along with fishing tournaments. Fish in general of all species seem to have thinned out. Not just this time of year as I fish all year long. I'm just not seeing the numbers of fish that I am used to seeing on the sonar.I understand seasonal migration,temperature and cold fronts etc. I wonder when the last time they did a shock survey of the fish population?

I have fished Stockton lake for over 35 years steady and have noticed that the last 3 years the amount of fish caught and the quality or size of fish has decreased dramatically.I have also noticed when running my Hummingbird Helix 10 for many miles at different depths and structures the numbers of fish shown have dropped off considerably compared to years past.I know that the fishing pressure has increased but the DNR keeps telling us about their wonderful stocking program.Any thoughts?

They will go south quick with these temps,Best to put them on ice right away or this happens.

Actually the MDC needs to rethink the Walleye stocking program for Stockton Lake.The current program is almost laughable.The one year survival rate is one fish per 8.3 acres.With all the money they take in from the sportsman's tax a realistic stocking program would be the right thing to do.

The lake is stocked with approx 150,000 to 300,000 fingerlings 1-2 inches on a annual basis now and in years past it was every other year. Normal 1 year survival rate is 1%........So 1500 to 3000 make it to 1year in the lake.Fishing pressure has increased dramatically for Walleyes in Stockton lake along with the increase in Canadian Cormorants by the thousands on our lake(those large flocks of black birds that look like ducks that you see everywhere on the lake).The Cormorants gorge themselves on fish eggs and then target the fingerlings Walleye being their food of preference,these deep diving birds devour the future stock in large numbers. If the stocking program is not increased to a realistic level the future of our Walleye population is in jeopardy.

Fished Stocton lake 30 plus years.I side hooked a large gar in the early eighties by Aldrich bridge got off at the boat but left a scale on my hook the size of a silver dollar.My uncle who is not a avid fisherman caught a walleye in 1980 that measured 42 inches fishing around the island in the main lake for crappie.I did not beleive him when he told me the story so he went in the drawer and pulled out a picture of the fish next to a yard stick.And yes it was 42.He cooked the fish and said it fed 6 people and had some left over. I have read that the first 10 years that a new reservour is open the nutrents in the lake produce monsters then it tapers off.Same thing is true for the record walleye out of Greers Ferry lake in AR.It was caught within the first ten years of the lake openinig.

Surface temp 68-70 last sunday

What impact are they having on the ecosystem? One of the most well documented impacts is on our native mussels. Zebra mussels are anchoring themselves by the thousands to native mussels making it impossible for the native mussel to function. As many as 10,000 zebra mussels have attached to a single native mussel. Our natives have all but disappeared in Lake St.Clair and the western basin of Lake Erie. Zebra mussels also are filtering the Great Lakes at an amazing rate, making the lake very clear. Most people assume that this increased visibility in the water must mean the water is "cleaner". Not true. All they have done is filter out all the algae which normally would be food for native microscopic organisms.