Biggest Walleye Lake

[Feathers and Fins]

If you were to pick a lake in the Ozarks that held the biggest Walleye what lake would you fish. Im talking a lake that 6 pounders or bigger would be a regular catch.

Also what is the biggest sleeper lake for Walleye in the Ozarks.

And finally what lake do you beleive holds the most walleye in the ozarks

[ozarkgunner]

Stockton has the most. Bull shoals has the biggest. Sleeper lake is Truman or upper loz.

[rps]

OG is right about size - Bull wins.

Stockton has many, that is true, but Bull may win that as well.

Sleeper category? Table Rock or Beaver.

[Feathers and Fins]

From all my research I have been doing it seems Stockton for numbers, Greers for size and the sleeper has to go to Beaver..... Outside this forum I have not been able to find anything of note on Beaver. There is a little on TR.

I hope more people add their views to this. It also appears that Southern Walleye fishing is done very diffrent from Northern fishing and the fish are much larger in the south. Its been fun learning about them and reading on the fisheries.

[Al Agnew]

Is Greers Ferry STILL the best for big fish? It used to be...the AR state record, a fish that in some places is recognized now as the world record, came from Greers. But that was 30 years ago. I don't hear much about those river run fish that made up all the big ones in Greers anymore. In fact, about the only place I ever hear of fish in the upper teens being caught is the upper end of Bull Shoals. Stockton was once thought to be the best big fish producer in MO, but again the native river run fish that have the greatest genetic potential to get big have largely been replaced by the stockings of lake walleye, as in Greers.

The native river walleye of the Black, St. Francis, and White river systems in the Ozarks have, or had, the best potential to grow big of walleye anywhere, with only the Tennessee river sytem river run walleye matching them for top end size. But everything we have done to manage these fish has turned out to be mostly wrong. First many of their rivers were dammed. If the lake was suitable summer habitat, deep and clear, the native fish could live in it and get even bigger, but they still needed a sizable river above the lake to spawn, since they were genetically programmed to spawn over deep riffles. Most of the lakes were built right over their best spawning habitat, leaving them streams above that were only marginally big enough to get their spawning done. If it was too dry during their spawning run up into streams like the forks of the Little Red above Greers, or the Sac above Stockton, they couldn't run far up them and they were limited only to a few small riffles for spawning, so their numbers in those lakes began to dwindle. They could only go up as far as Powersite Dam at the upper end of Bull Shoals and possibly a few riffles at the lower ends of Beaver, Swan, and Bull creeks, so the river run fish probably have always been of limited numbers in that lake. And Beaver was built right above Table Rock, leaving only the James and Kings to furnish spawning habitat for river run fish there. The forks of the White above Beaver, and War Eagle Creek, are the only possible spawning areas for any river run fish in that lake. Actually the best spawning habitat for river run fish of any Ozark impoundment is found on the North Fork above Norfork Lake, and you occasionally hear of some big fish caught there. But because most of the lakes didn't provide enough spawning habitat for the river run fish, they got scarcer and were supplanted with lake spawning fish with poorer genetics for growing big.

So...probably the undammed rivers have the best potential these days for producing truly big fish. But we aren't managing them for big fish. The overall population in rivers like the Black, Current, Eleven Point, and Spring isn't very numerous, so catch and keep fishing can have a big impact on those numbers, and traditionally when the Ozarker catches a walleye he keeps it. The walleye are probably being cropped off before they can get truly big, especially when you consider that only the females have any change of getting big. In my opinion, walleye in these streams should be under one fish, 30 inch regulations, and if they were, there would be real potential of catching a world record out of the streams I mentioned. I've personally seen fish between 15 and 18 pounds caught out of the Black and Current, but that was mainly back three or four decades ago when fishing pressure for winter walleye on those streams wasn't nearly as great as it is now.

[ozarkgunner]

I have never fished beaver. I will bow out for the sleeper if the other guys think so. I pick Stockton for numbers also because of the 15 inch limit. That can turn a day of no keepers into a Limit really quickly. I caught lots of 18 inch fish on Stockton but most are 14-17. Good size to eat if north of 15. Bull can have days full of 16-17 inch fish.

[Blazerman]

Like Al says, you might want to include rivers as best for big walleye. We make an annual trip to the White right below bull shoals dam to fish for trout every year in February. Always get a bunch of trout. But the last few years we have also started seeing walleye in the deeper holes.

The guides there say they see them every year but nobody really fishes for them. Every year guys pick up some big ones fishing for big browns with crank baits right below the dam. We got these two on lucky craft pointers from a deep pool right as it was getting dark. The big one was over 8 and the other was 5.5.

[laker67]

LOZ used to produce some big walleye in large numbers when I was a kid growing up here. That was in the 50's and 60's. Like Al stated, truman dam stopped the migration to good spawning areas. Kasinger Bluff and above were the prime spawning ground back then. A 15 lber was caught at the mouth of the big niangua a few years back and thats the largest I have heard of in 40 years. 12 and to 15 lbers were common in the 60's. Harold Ensley used to do an annual walleye show here at the lake. They would troll hellbenders and cowbell's.

[Al Agnew]

For some reason Lake of the Ozarks never produced many really big walleye. The 15 pounder you mentioned is the biggest one I've ever heard being caught in LOZ. But it produced a lot of nice fish for many years.

The Gasconade and Meramec have never produced really big walleye, either. Apparently different genetics.

Having fished upper Big River all my life, I never saw a walleye in the river above the uppermost mill dam at Morse Mill, until about three years ago I caught two not far below Bonne Terre. The biologist said he'd shocked up several in that area that year, but there was no other record of them in that part of the river.

That's interesting about catching them in the White River. I wonder if there are a bunch of them farther down on the White.

My favorite walleye story, which was reported in the Conservationist magazine back in the early 1960s or late 1950s, was that MDC employees live trapped one at Blue Spring on Wappapello Reservoir that they estimated at 30 pounds. That was before they died out on the St. Francis above the lake. In the first decade or so after Wappapello was built, the St. Francis above the lake produced a lot of huge walleye.

[laker67]

For some reason Lake of the Ozarks never produced many really big walleye. The 15 pounder you mentioned is the biggest one I've ever heard being caught in LOZ. But it produced a lot of nice fish for many years.

Yeah, you would have thought that at some point loz would have produced a 20 lb fish. Numerous nice fish in my younger days, but not so much anymore. A few years back mdc started an annual restocking program here at the lake. I think 300,000 fingerlings each year. Keeper fish are more common now, with an occasional 6 to 8 pounder being caught. Like you said, most are harvested when they reach keeper size and the spring runs are nothing compared to years back. Most of the larger fish are harvested during the spawning run.