packersooner

We got out for a little over half the day on Saturday but only managed five keepers. The pre-stage brush piles that produced a few weeks back were a no go. We finally started locking into a pattern in the shallows later in the afternoon and my cranking/electronics battery died. After jumping from the front batteries didn't work, figured it was best to swap them out and call it a day. Jason

+1 on this method. I'll add an inch or two of lake water to the top compartment and then add ice cubes throughout the day. Just make sure the ice cubes are made from distilled water. The ice "disk" in the bottom compartment will last almost all day in the summer. This is a much cleaner approach with the cold water plumping up the crawlers. Academy sells the Frabill version.

Thanks for the tips LDT. Boomer Sooner right back at ya!

Hey there LDT. Out of curiosity, what size of road runners do you use? Also would be curious what type of line you are using to keep those down that deep while trolling. Thanks!

Yeah he does it right. The Chicago style dogs and sandwiches are also excellent. The leadcore takes some learning. I had a few seasoned vets (Powerdive and Rangerman) show me the ropes. It's best to start with long line trolling. Can't go wrong with the Depthmaster combos. I think they are on sale "as we speak".

Excellent post LoweSTX175! You've got the system down pat. From the way it sounds, I probably use the leadcore setups more than you do. It's overkill for crappie, but very effective. Speed control becomes critical with the leadcore setups though. If going straight braid (flouro leader), snap weights can also be effective. Saw that your residence is in Lenexa. Have you tried Pizza Man on Pflumm Rd.? Jason

Fished around Pittsburg landing and fought wind all day. The plan was to fish bluff sides and in shallow. Didn't work. Water temps were probably too cool. Started off in the 47-48 degree range and warmed to 50 by the end of the day. Moved out looking for schooling shad and staging brush piles. Bingo. We ended up with 20 including several really nice slabs. Was surprised by the number of white crappie. All were caught on jigs in 9-12 fow. You had to be on top of...or in the brush to get hit. Jason

Oberst, You are correct. There is a noise filter. I have it set at "High 3" just to temper the interference between the two units. I have talked with MotorGuide and Humminbird and they have given me a few ideas to try and eliminate the trolling motor interference. I have a hunch that a bunch of trial and error is in my future. Gotta love troubleshooting! Jason

Thanks for the replies everyone. I do have the trolling motor power cables in close proximity to the Humminbird power cables. Unfortunately, there will not be an easy way to separate them as there is only one port running up to the bow. What bothers me even more is that the side-imaging on my back unit is getting massive interference. Not sure what to think about that one.

Inshore...yeah I've always had interference between the front and back units when I get into 30 fow or deeper. Sporadic thin vertical lines. This is far worse though. When the trolling motor is on, the front unit now has a lot of vertical lines. The side imaging on the back unit is completely useless. It sounds like it may be the variable speed unit in the trolling motor. Dan...also went with the 80 thrust. Glad to hear you are a fan! We got on the water a little before 8 and fished until around 6. Most of the fish came in the morning and early afternoon. They were down in the brush for the most part. Had to put the jigs right on top of it (or in it) to get hit. Definitely donated a good handful of jigs.

Fished out of RB targeting crappie. Manged nine keepers with several shorts on deep brush piles (35-40 fow). Hot pink jigs seemed to be the ticket. My fishing partner caught a nice bonus walleye that went just under 23". Water temps started off around 42-43 degrees and warmed up into the mid 40s by the end of the day. On a side note, just mounted an xi5 and had it out for the first time. The spot lock was amazing. Held on the brush piles with ease when it got breezy around mid-afternoon. Now I have to figure out the interference issues between it and the Humminbirds. Jason

NXS...yes indeed it was good to get out. This may be my favorite time of year to fish. We launched at RB and saw multiple bald eagles...including a close proximity dive-bomb of a shad. I guess the water clarity didn't come into play for that eagle...that shad had no chance! Between the eagles, the weather and the sunset that Dan brought up (the sunrise wasn't bad either), it was a fine day. Just wish I knew why the shad weren't grouping up like normal.

Went up not knowing what to expect given the high and stained water. Plan was to jig shad balls in large coves in the lower end of the lake. Well...that didn't work. We scanned the typical winter haunts with a side-imager and the shad were very scattered in smaller balls. We picked up a few keepers off of a deep brush pile early on (40-60 fow) and another one at the same depth well away from the brush. Water was stained with a visibility of about five feet. We then decided to move onto "greener pastures" and check some other reliable places as well as scan for new ones. We could not find the typical large balls of shad. We tried channel bends on the main lake and all sizes of coves. We got as far south as the State Park on both the Big and Little Sac sides. We probably scanned for nearly half the day and occasionally fished. Just some shorts. One item of note was water clarity got much worse by the time we got to Hartley. Maybe around two feet of clarity. We then decided to return back north and bounced an hour for walleye. One cigar in 50 fow. Finally ended up the day by returning to the same deep brush pile. Managed to put another six keepers in the boat...including some slabs. Jig colors varied throughout the day. Probably a function of water clarity and the mix of sun and clouds. Caught them on blue. silver, green, and pink plastics as well a a gray marabou jig. There were several instances where fish would come up on the jigs and not take them. Very lethargic. Water temps ranged from 37 to 42. Hope you all were able to figure them out! I am stumped as to why the shad aren't balling up like normal. Jason

Sorry for the delayed report. Managed to sneak out from mid-morning until mid-afternoon. Managed 8 keepers with a small handful of shorts. Good quality on the keepers with a few true slabs. Was a bit surprised that water temps were in the mid to upper 40s. Figured they would be a bit warmer. Fished jigs over deep brush on the edge of creek channels in the mid-lake area. 26-32 feet down in 33 to 43 fow. Those fish were down in the brush too. Took lots of patience to coax them out. Did briefly try to scan and fish balls of shad. Found one monster ball and proceeded to catch...a big drum. No crappie, but I didn't really give that pattern a fair shake. Jason

This is a good tactic. Try running the floating jig head/grub rod as a "dead stick" in a rod holder while fishing a crawler harness or slow death setup off the other side of the boat. I usually keep the dead stick rod 3-4 feet off the bottom to avoid hang-ups.

Marty, Welcome to the forum and nice "shack"! Now that is my idea of retirement! BTW, I have a sister/brother-in-law that live in Shreveport. Definitely no walleye down that way. I am fairly new to walleye fishing on Bull Shoals, but this board has been extremely helpful. You could spend hours searching past posts and really come up to speed on things. Heck if you search my user name, you will see several threads where the seasoned vets helped me out. One thing that I would strongly recommend is hiring a guide. I can count on one hand the amount of times I usually fish Bull Shoals in a given year. I hired Mike Worley a few years back and he taught me what would have taken at least five years to learn on my own. His advice didn't stop after the trip either. He has continued to answer questions/give me advice since that trip. Oh and he frequently targets stripers too. Jason

Good info Straw. Yeah you have to wonder what the oxygen content is like once you get into that 20-30 foot range. Fall can't get here soon enough!

Slab...yeah Stockton sure has been stubborn the last few summers. I should know better and hit some more consistent lakes for the crappie bite. Part of me just wants to solve the puzzle. I remember when I first started fishing Stockton and "didn't know any better", I would slow troll timbered channels with jigs and averaged 10 keepers a day between me and my partner. Shaw Bluff comes to mind. Not great numbers, but enough for dinner. Wtr dogs...marked a definite thermocline in the mid-lake region around 30 feet. This is much deeper than what I have seen in the past on Stockton. Usually, it has been around 20 feet. I did get out with Powerdive about a week and a half ago and we managed somewhere close to two dozen walleye fishing the flats. Only one keeper though and it barely made 15". Most were caught trolling cranks on leadcore. We also caught a handful on bottom bouncers. The best depth was 15-17 feet. Jason

The plan was to target brush pile crappie from mid-morning through early evening in the Twin Bridges area. Well, I crashed and burned. I probably fished 20 piles and scanned a dozen more. This included MDC piles both new (2015) and old. Water depths of 15 feet to 35 feet. Also hit several personal favorites. One short crappie and that was it! Fished with jigs. I will admit that I didn't spend much time on any one particular pile. 10-15 minutes and then move. I do have side-imaging/down-imaging on my console finder. I was not seeing fish around most of these piles! There were a few that had fish (even active ones) around them. They were not interested in my jigs. Theories as to what went wrong? Millions of one inch shad swimming around could be part of the problem. They are everywhere on that lake! I may not have been marking crappie even on those pile that were "active". For example, I kept getting bluegill hits and caught multiple young bass. It is also possible that the crappie have not moved to the brush in numbers or are buried way down in there. Would love to hear other takes on this. This is the second year in a row where I have not been able to pattern August crappie on Stockton. I heard reports (mainly last year) that dropping a minnow into the thickest brush wasn't even that effective. I'd be curious to hear how everyone else did on Monday. Saw a lot of boats on brush piles. BTW, I was the gray Lund zipping all over the place. Anywho, threw in the white flag on the crappie around midday and switched to walleye. Mainly bounced on the flats but did hit a few rocky shorelines/points. Handful of shorts and that was it. Of course, had the usual assortment of unwanteds (cats, bait-robbers, and even a big white). Jason

Impressive (and tasty)!

Wow what a kick to the gut. I was lucky enough to meet up with Jim this spring and do some crappie fishing. He was very quick to show me his favorite tactics and hot spots. He also shared a wealth of information. We went out in his rig and he would not accept any gas money and let me keep all the fish. Towards the end of our trip, he tossed a shakey head rig in towards shore and instantly proceeded to pull in a three pound bass. Instead of tossing right back in there, he rigged up another rod and showed me the ropes on fishing a shakey head. I'll never forget that. Jim was genuinely interested in helping people catch fish. It was clearly a passion of his. I am sure our Lord has already given Jim an atta boy for his service towards others. I wish I had gotten a chance to return the trip and gotten to know Jim better. Rest in peace Jim...

Yes indeed, great thread everyone! Thanks for the reports and tips.

Kdub, You can always check your speed and to make sure it is cork screwing by dropping the rig down a 3-4 feet into the water and starting to troll. Once you are going fast enough, you will see it spinning. Then, you can drop your rig to the bottom. Don't just thunk it down there either. First off, dropping it too fast can increase the chance of it getting hung when it initially hits bottom. The second reason is that all of the drag on your crawler may pull it down on the hook. If that happens, you will not catch fish as your rig will not cork screw. As Boobie said, speed up slightly or reel in a bit of line if your weight is constantly hitting bottom. You want your bouncer weight a foot or two above the bottom. Occasionally drop your rod tip down to make sure you are within a few feet of the bottom. If I mark what appears to be a walleye on the depth finder, I will sometimes drop my rod tip to entice a strike (wounded baitfish effect).

Kdub, Slow death is a great way to catch walleye on Stockton. You will almost always catch something on that type of rig. The first thing I'll throw out there is to make sure your rig is cork-screwing. If it's not, you will not catch fish. A good swivel is a must. Also, make sure you are trolling at least 0.7 mph. The way I will usually fish it is to troll a certain depth contour versus trolling from deep to shallow and vice-versa. Maybe start in at 12' make at least two passes (one each way) trying to stay on the 12' foot contour. Then move out 2 or 3 feet and repeat. For some reason, 20 fow seems to be a common depth for them to hang out at. Generally speaking, a two ounce bottom bouncer weight (I prefer pencil verses L-shaped) will work for those depths. 1.5 ounce would probably be a bit better if you find them in the 12-16 fow range. The general rule of thumb is an ounce per 10 feet of water. BTW, welcome to the forum!

Fished from about 1:30 until just after 8 mainly targeting walleye. Was able to boat 15 of them with the 4 keepers being 15, 16, 17, and 18". Most of them were caught on crawler harnesses in 18-22 fow. Had to switch colors as the skies cleared up. All of them were either on points or just inside points on the main lake. Also caught a nice catfish who mangled one of my harnesses...lol! Then switched to leadcore and Flickers around 6:30. Caught a half dozen keeper crappie and a handful of shorts (crappie and walleye). Fished the 16-21 fow range. Jason