Big Walleye

[minnesotawalleyeguy]

Hey guys,im new to the forum but am a very avid walleye fisherman and i have been fishing Stockton for several years now with one problem...No biggins! I usually have pretty good luck going home with a limit but the biggest eye ive taken home was 4lbs. I bottom bounce with crawlers,troll cranks,and even vertical jig with/without minnows. Are there any real hogs in the lake? Ive heard that Stockton has the numbers and Bull Shoals has the biggins,but have never fished the Bull. Granted id rather have a limit of keepers than 1 biggin,but a hog would make one of my trips REALLY worth it!!

[vonreed]

Yeah, I wish I had your problem, lol. I fish Bull Shoals a lot and very rarely get a limit and consider myself lucky if I go home with 1, no matter the size. I wish stockton was closer so I could go up there more often.

[Bird Watcher]

Hey guys,im new to the forum but am a very avid walleye fisherman and i have been fishing Stockton for several years now with one problem...No biggins! I usually have pretty good luck going home with a limit but the biggest eye ive taken home was 4lbs. I bottom bounce with crawlers,troll cranks,and even vertical jig with/without minnows. Are there any real hogs in the lake? Ive heard that Stockton has the numbers and Bull Shoals has the biggins,but have never fished the Bull. Granted id rather have a limit of keepers than 1 biggin,but a hog would make one of my trips REALLY worth it!!

Yes. Stockon has some hawgs. I've seen them with my own two eyes. Catching them? Well, that's a different story.

[bigshow]

Yes, we usually pull at least one 7-8 pounder out every spring, which I realize is not huge but decent....

[Haulin Bass]

Last year I lost a HUGE PIG at the boat!

i was Crappie fishing with jigs, and the Walleye hit, and she straightened out my darn hook.

I'd guess 71/2 to 8lbs. I faught that thing for 15 minutes, and lost it right at the boat! (Dooooh!)

I have seen a handful of 6 & 7 lbs-ers. And I have heard of many big walleye caught while crappie fishing.

But if you want to see a limit of huge walleye, you need to go down to Power Site Dam at Lake Tanneycomo. Only problem is that when they are hitting, you'll be able to walk across the lake with boaters. It's elbow to elbow down there right now!

But if I could put my limit on the boat with any regularity in Sockton, I would be a happy camper.

I've fished "The Bull" and have tried everything for Walleye, and never caught a limit there either.

Sorry.

[bfishn]

Persistence.

It took me ~15 years to crack 10. I've been fortunate enough since with cotinued dedication to have caught 5 more from 11-15.

Like many endeavors, the more I learn, the more I realize I know very little about it. IME, the best time for a bigun is definitely pre-spawn, when the biguns are in the same place as the rest. My 4 largest all came the same calendar week of the year, with the others very close.

After that, I believe the biguns live independantly from the rest, suspended much of the time eating big shad, much like stripers. The limited number of biguns in thousands of acres quickly becomes lottery odds.

My advice? Stick with what you're doing that works. Save up for a good snowsuit and maybe a little propane heater. Start in late January and fish your brains out till mid March. Fish for biguns with big green sunfish or 7"+ creek hornys (my favorite). Don't quit till the cows come home (which incidentally is the secret code name of one of my favorite spots).

Persistence.

[Josh Holt]

I also live near bull shoals powersite darn and Just like crappie fishing I love to walleye fish. I am one of the lucky few people who have managed to catch 10 walleye over 10 lbs but I have been fishing for walleye for 10 or 12 years and my advice if you want to catch a hog stay away from the dam and fish from swan creek down the lake to the barker hole. I have not been this year due to a wreck i had back last july but I start fishing for the big pigs in early december through late febuary I dont throw nothing but custom painted rogues but I do know they work. I have left with limits lots of nights on bull shoals and i have left empty handed just as many times I think it has a lot to do with location and presentation and this is the result of many cold nights trying to figure these fish out

[powerdive]

The MDC stocks Stockton every other year with hundreds of thousands of walleye fry. It takes about two years for the fry to reach the 15"minimum. The MDC considers Stockton a "put-and-take" fishery because natural spawning success is very limited. The result is that small fish dominate the size distribution; with the smaller minimum size (15") and high attrition, there number of fish making it to that 25"-plus range is significantly lower at Stockton than at other lakes.

They are there, however. The shad forage base supports growth at all stages, and I believe the lake record is 16 lbs. The really big fish are just few and far between.

I've been fishing Stockton for walleyes for 15 years and still have not caught an 8 pounder there. Then again, I prefer not to fish for pre-spawn eyes (I wish they'd close the season down here to protect the spawn, but as long as it's legal I don't begrudge anyone else fishing for them). If I felt differently and was determined to catch a large eye at Stockton, I'd do as bfishn and Josh suggested and concentrate on the late winter/early spring period, throwing suspending stickbaits to the mainlake points from midlake to the dam

Otherwise, you'll only catch the occasional larger fish mixed in with the eaters. There are some largely unexplored patterns to investigate through the rest of the year, such as exploring the many acres of timber or finding shallow springs or current that could hold some big fish, but they'd take a lot of time to unravel.

In general, think Stockton for numbers, the border lakes for trophies.

[DADAKOTA]

Big walleye are a nice feather in your cap, but they do not eat as well as the smaller ones.

[WakenLake]

wow look at the size of that walleye! cant imagine handlin that bad boy, gotta love those teeth.