packersooner

Sounds like a solid day indeed nwtf! I finally got my wife out in the boat last Tuesday. We targeted crappie generally along and north of the mile long bridge. Tried brush piles first with very little success. Did manage to catch 3 keeper black crappies out of the shallowest brush pile we could find. Two on jigs and one on a chart. twister. Finally gave up on the brush piles and switched to trolling Flicker Shads in large main lake coves. We caught 15 nice white crappie in about a two and a half hour stretch. Several of those were in the 12-14" range. Found you had to get those things down to 15 feet to get the strikes. We trolled anywhere between 1.8 and 2.4 mph. Didn't seem to matter. Depths ranged from 20 to 45 feet. Again, chart. seemed to be the best color...but they were hitting other color combos too. Jason

Thanks for the report Mike! Are you catching your bottom bouncer fish on the main lake, flats, points, etc.? Jason

Great report Sam! You don't see many crappie reports on this forum compared to some other lake forums. Honestly, I have not been able to figure out Bull Shoals crappie any time of the year. Doesn't help that we usually walleye fish when we head down that way. Jason

Thanks for the report Brad! We ended up with 19 keepers today. We must have caught at least 40 sub legals. We tried everywhere from the coves around Lightfoot to Fugat cove. Anywhere from the shore to 35 fow. Pretty much all of them seemed to be on some sort of brush. We caught about half of them vertically jigging and the other half casting twisters/road runners over brush piles. Green. blue, and hot pink seemed to work best. Water temps ranged from 62 to 67. All in all, your reports seemed pretty much spot on. I guess we didn't find the magic brush piles where you have been limiting out Jason

No doubt there is a lot of brush in that general area. A lot of it was put there by MDC (signs on shore, indicated on map, etc.), but there are indeed a fair amount of "private" piles. I'll do my best to stay on the marked ones I am with ya on the month of April topic. One of my busiest times of year at work. I'm lucky to get out 3 or 4 times the whole month. I have lived in MO for 7 years now and have not timed the crappie spawn (females in shallow) right once! Work just gets in the way Jason

Thanks for the advice Brad! I'll check the board before I head out in the morning in case you were able to sneak out. As of right now, we are thinking of launching at Lightfoot. We did well late this winter fishing brush piles right along the bluff to the south of the ramp. I let you know how we do... Jason

We were thinking of heading up there on Tuesday. Saw Brad's excellent report from about a week ago. Anyone know if conditions have changed? It looks like the water should be coming up due to the rain this weekend. Jason

Yeah talked to quite a few on the lake on Saturday. The same banks that quickly produced limits from mid to late week did nothing on Saturday. I wonder if they picked back up on Sunday or today? Good to hear a few of you picking up some bonus walleye. Wasn't lucky enough to hook into any of those. Still a great day though.

Started out in Sons fishing the banks at sunrise. Only caught one small male. Moved out and had some luck fishing the edge of the creek channel within site of the 39 bridge. Caught most of them on stumps that were just below the surface of the water. Ended up with a couple dozen before calling it quits. All were on jigs. Water temps started around 61 in the morning, and were between 66 and 67 by the time we left in the afternoon. Most of the females still had eggs in them. My gut says they may finish spawning (females) Sunday/Monday in the southern part of the lake...with a decent cool down and unsettled weather on the way. We shall see... Jason

Thanks for the responses everyone. It's just tough to do a one man launch without a courtesy dock next to the ramp...unless you drag your boat back up on shore so you can park the truck. Thanks for the info on the crappie MOPanfisher. Your take has been spot on the few times I have fished Pomme. Jason

Got out on the lake at about 830 am and the wind drove us off by noon. Just couldn't find a place to hide. We managed 6 keeper crappie and probably a dozen or so shorts. All of them came in 25-30 fow on a ledge with brush. Most of the keepers were caught when a school of shad would move through just above brush level. The shallower pods of shad would only produce small crappie. Anywho, a couple of questions for those of you that fish Pomme frequently... 1) Does the Bolivar boat ramp have a courtesy dock directly next to one of the boat ramp lanes? 2) Looking at past fishing reports, it seems that a lot of anglers fish the bluffs for crappie. Would anyone mind sharing how they go about fishing this type of pattern? Are you keying in on brush piles, trolling until you find them, etc.? Jason

Skeeterfisher, Your best bet this time of year is to scope out balls of shad and fish them with a jig or jig/minnow combo. You may also pick up a bonus walleye. I will usually fish anywhere from 30 to 60 feet of water in larger coves or in creek channels. With Stockton being such a windy lake, the key is to keep in contact with your jigs at the preferred depth. Don't be afraid to go with two or three jig setups with heavy jig heads. It also helps to get out of the wind. Don't be afraid to spend some time motoring around to find the schools of shad with your sonar. It will be worth your time. Good luck! Jason

Hopefully no one else goes through this mess, but just in case they do... We ended up ordering the axle through Trux in Springfield. Trux (along with most places that sell axles in Springfield) gets their axles from Redneck. However, Trux was substantially cheaper. We installed the axle ourselves, but their rates didn't seem all that bad. Jason

Fished for a little over 6 hours and ended up with 21 keeper crappie. It seemed like one out of every 3 or 4 was a keeper. Fished the tops brush piles where the creek channel swung up along the shore. The bigger fish seemed to come when a ball of shad would move through. Caught them anywhere from 15 to 20 feet down in 20 to 30 feet of water. All on jigs with pink, green, and blue the main colors. This was our second trip to Pomme...so all in all a good day! The first trip didn't go so well. Spent the entire day in the parking lot replacing the bearings on the trailer axle. Jason

All, I blew out my bearings bad enough to mess up one of the axle spindles. I am thinking it would be best to bite the bullet and buy a new axle. I suppose repairing the spindle would be an option. Does anyone know of a good place in Springfield to either repair an axle, or buy a new one? I just can't seem to find an axle online that fits the right measurements. Jason

Straw Hat, Sounds like a relaxing, yet productive day. So ice on the edges this morning??? That will make at least three years in a row if the lake freezes over again. How typical is this around here? Jason

Straw Hat, Sorry for the delayed response. Yeah the water color still seemed off. Hopefully you got out today. Sure is nice out there. Jason

Targeted crappie for about six hours from Twin Bridges down to the other side of Birch. Could only manage one LM, one keeper crappie, and a small white bass. The crappie and LM came from a main lake brush pile in 30 fow on a jig. We tried creek channel bends near bluffs, brush piles, bridge pilings, and timber...anywhere from 15 to 40 fow. The guy I fished with mainly fished a jig & minnow or straight minnow and didn't even get a hit. Water temps were in the upper 40s. Spent a decent amount of time cruising creek channels scoping for schooling shad and crappie. While we did see a fair amount of shad balls, they were fairly small and scattered. Nothing like the huge schools you get in the dead of winter. Not sure what we were doing wrong. Did talk to one gentleman at the launch who had done fairly well along a bluff and in brush piles. Jason

Thanks for the info Mike. Are the Fle-Fly spoons even sold anymore? A Google search did not hit on all that much. Jason

Mike, Any advice on what types/colors of jigging spoons to use for walleye and crappie? Many thanks! Jason

Taxidermist, That is very interesting. Thanks for the info. Did you see many walleye? I am new to fishing Bull Shoals, but I was under the impression that if the thermocline set up, it was usually deeper than this. Perhaps a combination of the high water and heat? Regardless, it sounds like the oxygen quality has just gotten too poor below the thermocline. Jason

Mike, Have you messed much with the cranks this year, or have you mostly stuck with the B/B's and spoons? The reason I ask is that I haven't seen you mention the "deep" creek channel bite for awhile. Looks like you all can't keep the bluegills off your B/B's either. You'll feel that familiar "peck peck peck" just in time to mark a nice walleye on the depth finder. Frustrating at times Jason

Mike, My mistake. Saw a couple of boats that morning on the flats next to Bear Creek. There was another one on Bee Creek island. Perhaps one of those was you. Yeah was fishing the 800 series Reef Runners with braid. Jason

A little late, but been super busy. Went out for about 4 hours Monday morning and fished brush piles for crappie. Fished two brush piles and nothing. Then caught a limit on the 3rd. Caught most of them on jigs. Switched to minnows for the last few and caught the biggest ones of the day. The active brush pile extended from 15 to 23 feet of water...with most of the fish caught at 17 feet. The clouds were in that morning, which may be the reason the jig bite was on. Jason

We also fished out of Tucker Hollow both Tuesday and Wednesday. Did not fish all that long either day. Had a thunderstorm move through Tuesday, and then the heat won on Wednesday. Didn't mess much with bottom bouncers. Probably should have. Still trying to master the art of trolling crankbaits with planer boards. The information you, Rangerman, and several others have given on this board have now got me addicted! BTW, we were the gray Lund that kept trolling back and forth between Bee and Bear Creeks. I think that may have been you that passed us with the Bimini top around 1 PM. As for report, we had three keeper walleyes between the two days. Probably had seven or so shorts...including a couple that were likely from this year's class. All were caught on Reef Runners in 25 to 40 fow. Caught them on several colors, but white and red/orange seemed to be the best. Jason