April 16, 2008 Stockton Lake Fishing Report

[Thompson Fishing Guide Service]

April 16, 2008 Stockton Lake Fishing Report

Lake level: 883.37

Normal pool 867

The lake is 16 feet above normal pool, its third highest level ever. Fishing is slow. The first thing you need to consider before you come here is where you can put in your boat. On the west side of the lake, Ruark Bluff along with RB boat ramp is usable. You need to be real careful because you don’t have much depth due to the fact that you will be launching your boat out of the parking lot. Space will be very limited. Cedar Ridge and Crabtree Cove boat ramps are open as far as I know. Forget Hawker, Old State Park, and State Park. Check out the ramp situation before you come because I don’t fish out of every ramp, and docks are being moved frequently.

The water south of the Y bridge is very stained. We have caught a few walleye in the area of the twin bridges on a crawler harness with a minnow and a large Colorado blade fished Lindy rigged style. For the most part, I would start my walleye hunt north of the twin bridges to the dam. A lot of the fish have already spawned and moved out to the main lake points again, so that is where I would start. The fish have been deep for the most part and the best presentation so far has been the jig and large minnow vertically fished. You’ll have to pick a point where you are out of the wind, which has been pretty bad the last few days. Hopefully it will settle down. Because they are deep most of the time, try spider line on your spinning rod and it will increase your sensitivity. If we get three of four warm days in a row, the walleye will bite pretty well along the brushy shore line on suspended jerk baits.

I have heard a lot of comments reference the rising water and how it hurts the fishing. In reality, the rising water is not the problem; it is the unstable barometric pressure at close intervals, which has produced massive amounts of cold rain. This has slowed the fishing. Remember what you learned in fishing guide school: what motivates a fish the most? 1) food 2) barometric pressure 3) water temperature 4) the spawn (not necessarily in that order, of course).

For white bass, you need to find running water to locate large schools of them. Look around the Turkey Creek area or Maze Creek areas. Some fish have been caught in the Sac and Son’s Creek arms, way up the river, but because of the coffee and cream colored water, and floating timber, your time and prop would probably be better spent above the 215 bridge.

Largemouth bass: north of the Y bridge, is where the water starts to clear. Water temperature is important. Fish are being caught in the backs of coves (which have creeks) in around 55+ degree water. Pig and jig works, along with plastic worms or whatever provides a slow presentation. Suspended jerk baits will work also. The fish are still pretty slow, so the bite is very light.

Some crappie are being caught in the deep timber, such as Price Branch, or the Turkey Creek areas. Your bigger fish are still deep, I guess you could call that the pre spawn, pre spawn pre spawn, but you can find them on your graph and the crappie we have been taking has been in around 30-45 feet of water if you can believe that. We used jigs and minnows or small jigging spoons with white buck tails on the treble hook. The fishing should pick up in the next few days, providing we have warm, stable weather. When it picks up, I predict that it will get real good in a real short period of time.

It will be interesting to see how all this plays out reference boat access, and available parking. Because the river below Stockton is already flooded, the Corps has no plans to release water from the lake. Stockton will be high for awhile. One good advantage to high water this time of the year is it provides an excellent nursery environment for all baby fish and creatures that live in the ecosystem.

If you have any comments or questions, let me know and I’ll do the best I can to answer them.

Marty Thompson

Thompson Fishing Guide Service

www.fishstockton.com

417-424-BASS

[powerdive]

Great report! Thank you.

[Webfoot12]

Thanks for the report...

A budy and I are planning on going this coming Friday. We usually get together only once a year and meet up at the Greenfield Access. Never done especially well but enjoy our day on the water none the less.

I'm not asking for any of your secret spots but if you've got a better put in location in mind I'de be happy to hear it.

Looking to find some Crappie by the way...

[Dutch]

I have been a couple of times lately. I don't even recognize most of my old fishing spots. There are places where I can't even see the bank.

The ramps I have used are very shallow and hard to load and unload when by myself.

You should be able to put in at Greenfield access (CC) with no trouble. The crappie should be hanging in the brush but this weeks rains may change everything.