straw hat

Thanks Powerdive. Keep those fish on there toes for us. (Do fish have toes? lol)

Thanks for asking about me NWTF. I had a reaction to one of my meds back in Feb. It shutdown all testosterone production, shutdown thyroid production, setting heartrate went to 180, etc. The medicine they went too suddenly stopped working las t week so my body 'crashed' again. Back on another new med. They said it will take about 3 weeks for me to stabilize and then we will see. At least the thyroid is back up and running. To all my freinds out there, enjoy your health when you got it and hug your wife and kids every time you get a chance.

Thanks frying eyes and mean time catch a few for me!!! lol

Sorry to hear about your ailments. I hope you get better soon. Same for me. Haven;t been able to go since early Feb if I remember right. The doc says maybe July. You guys enjoy what you can when you can... life is short.

Both are up 1 1/2 to 2 foot above normal and dropping slowly.

Great Report!!! Thanks

I love the Indian Creek arm. My favorite BUT... you biggest problem will be boaters. Thicker than fleas on a hound dogs leg. The jet skiers will follow you just to jump the waves. Assuming the water is normal and not muddy, head about 1/2 way toward the back of hte cove and begin by focusing on 25 to 35' with jigs or dropshot rigs with soft plastics. It can be good fishing there at that time. There are also a lot of big goggleye (yep goggleye) on the rock strewn pea gravel steep banks near the mouth of the cove. If there is anyother questions I can help you with let me know.

Welcome to the site!! Look forward to seeing more of your reports.

News release - http://www.ktts.com/news/198599591.html

What the heck? I just read about it on their Corp Stockton web site!! They said the changeout would take 18 to 24 months! Our government at its best. lol

I have got a few flowers on my forsythia and several daffodils blooming so I just had to geet out of the house. Walked up Big Sac around a mile and a half. It sure is low. Couldn't find hide nor hair of a fish. Water temp was averaging around 41. Stopped by CC and the ramp is now open. Only saw one boat. Several bank fishermen. Only fished for a little bit with no hits. Shouldn't be long now. This warm weather next week should really start loosening the fish lips. lol

Ranger Dave, I don't know how deep it is at Aldrich right now but I can tell you that the lake is 5' 8" below powerpool so I thought maybe that might tell you how shallow it is right now.

I have caughta lot of bass, cats and walleye off of the dam rock riprap. evena few crappie. All from the bank. There is also a bluff inside Crabtree Cove which is pretty good in the fall for bass and walleye.

I tried to directly post this website on my post but it didn't work so I am trying to post it with an attachment. Just double click on the lake you are interested. Each time you do this the map expands. When you get down to the details and then the gps coordinates will show. There are also links to the coordinates that can be copied or downloaded. Good luck!! Brushpiles.doc

Didn't mean to step on your post walleyed mike. I guess I was typing mine while you were posting yours! lol

Patp2B, That is usually a great time of year to hit Stockton. The Turnback/Big Sac arm at the CC bridge is usually good as well as the Little Sac arm near Aldrich. For your size boat that should be good. What are you going to fish for? Let us know and we will try to give you some tips. That is a little early for the best catfishing but everything else should be good (bass, crappie, walleye and whites).

There is a ramp there. As you approach from the south there is a small section of the old highway that goes down to the lake on the right. There is not much room to launch there and only room for a few boats to park. I haven't been there since the low water so I don't know if the water is too low to launch. I suspect it may be. Hopefully the lake level will get better sooner than latter.

A little cool and windy today but I just had to get out of the house. Fished the CC area for 4 hours and only managed 2 crappie and 1 spotted bass. Water was very very milky. Water temp was 39 and less than 1 foot visibility. The crappie I caught were 12' deep in 20' of water. Couldn't buy a bite from a walleye.

I don't know but I have heard of a few being caught around CC as well as the 39 bridge.

You know what I would like to see walcrabass? I would like to see spotted bass treated like a panfish like crappie. The spots have nearly identical fecundity (eggs per pound of fish) and similar growth rates. I would like to see a 10" length limit and a bag limit of 10. I think that would really help the crappie and the largemouth popuations. The fear that fisherman can't tell the difference between spots and largemouth I think is a poor excuse and an insult to fisherman. If there were sucha limit on spots and a fisherman caught a small bass they weren't sure was a spot he could simply return it unharmed to the water and continue fishing. The popuation of spots in the lake could provide another great panfish population for the fisherman to enjoy.

Loosing a big fish without ever seeing it really sucks!!! I had a similalr experience once but was lucky enough to get the fish in. It was a carp that weighted 54 lbs on a small crappie minnow. (He was eating light that day!!) lol Odds are it was a big carp but unluckily you will just never know.

I just read the 2013 "Fishing Prospects" report from the MDC. Looks like they are expecting an exceptional year for largemouth and a poor year for crappie. Anyway, just though you all might be interested in reading. http://extra.mdc.mo.gov/fish/prospects/?m=13#a67

That is the chromatophores I was talking about. Cloudy, dingy water, nighttime or any other low light situation causes those chromatophores to shrink and the fish to become lighter.

Dutch is right. The low temperature (and therefore low metabolism) reduces alot of the hormones and other metabolites once the water temperarure drops below 40 degrees. In addition, if the water is dingy during these low temps then the lack of sunlight will cause there melanophores (color bearing cells) to shrink. Also, if the temperatures are low enough to stress the fish this causes the blood vellels to the skin to contract in order to reduce heat loss. I have seen nothing on the darkness of bait to use on these white fish but I sure know that the speed of the bait has frequently been studied. The fish strike zone under these cold condition become very small and the fish metabolism is very slow soooo....the bait must be worked slow enough to keep it in the strike zone for as long as possible. Baits you can hold in one spot and shake or live bait that can set in front of a fish can be very productive. I hope this helps.

Well, if your ex lives around there you just got to go!!! I have always heard that ex-wives make good catfish bait if allowed to ferment a while!! lol Seriosly though, that might ruin that end of the lake. Oh, soooo mannnyyy things come to mind that I could say but this is a family freindly forum. There is very good catfishing in that area from April to late june. The cats (if we have enough water by then) while really lay up on the rock rip rap to spawn in late May to early June. I would definitely take them up on the offer.