July 9, 2008 Stockton Lake Fishing Report

[Thompson Fishing Guide Service]

July 9, 2008 Stockton Lake Fishing Report

Walleye fishing has been fair to good throughout the lake. Your best bet in my experience for a good bite is late afternoon/early evening. Main lake points are the places you should target, jigs and night crawlers, or crawler harnesses or road runners have been catching fish. Fish are in 19-20 feet of water. Drift with the wind or slow troll across these main lake points with the above mentioned lures. Another technique that is catching fish is trolling small deep running bass lures like the Bandit or Bagley Bs between 2 and 3 miles an hour. I know in my last report I said you need to have a slow presentation, but these fish have become a little more aggressive and they’ll tend to hit a faster moving bait. Use your depth finder to find the shad off these main lake points and if you are any kind of fisherman at all you should catch fish. Night fishing is also another option. There is not one particular place, so you need to spend a little time looking for the fish.

Crappie: deep brush piles (15-25 feet) will hold crappie. You’ll need to experiment with a lot of brush piles due to the fact that there’s about 10,000 acres of extra brush piles in the water and the fish for the most part are spread out. We have been using jigs and minnows held about 2 feet over the tops of the brush piles. If you want to vertical fish or if the fish are shallower, slow trolling these same baits is the way to go. If you can find them, you shouldn’t have any trouble in catching fish.

Largemouth bass: my client and I caught several bass between 2 and 5 pounds; most of them were in the far back reaches of the coves where you have lots of snakes. I was flipping plastic worms (which was very effective), and in more open water we tried spinner baits and a variety of crank baits to no avail, so we went back to the plastic worm. It seems like the fish position themselves right above or slightly inside of the endless shoreline brush. Main lake points adjacent to your steep bluffs will hold a majority of the fish this time of year. Top water is off and on.

Marty Thompson

Thompson Fishing Guide Service

www.fishstockton.com

417-424-BASS