Quick Impressions On My First Visit 4/20 Thru 4/26

[Ham]

Cajun Angler and I did our BIG Spring fishing trip this past week. It's always difficult to quess way ahead what the weather would have been like for Spring, but we were SURE that by the end of April everythig would be GREAT. Well, the water temp still had the fish pre-spawn and the bite was tougher than I would like it to have been, but that's how it goes.

But, you guys have a GREAT lake to fish. I'd keep encouraging everybody to go to Table Rock, Pomme and LOZ if I were you and keep Stockton nice and quiet.

Lot's of very nice boat launches and beauiful parks. We fished 2 half days and 4 FULL days and only used 26 gallons of gas feeding my 250 Merc. I thik we launched at 5 different ramps if I am remembering correctly.

The variety of birds and the large population of Loons and Osprey kept me entertained in between winding in fish.

We caught all three species of bass, drum, walleye, White Bass, and a lone 13 inch White Crappie. I guess the water was too cold for the other panfish to play along.

We caught good numbers of bass and good numbers of keepers. We did all the typical pre-spawn stuff. We released almost ALL of our fish. We did keep the keeper walleyes we caught while bass fishing which was more than I am used to catching.

I'd need some help with the crappie. I'm used to fishng private docks with planted brush and I saw ZERO of that on Stockton. Like I said we were bass fishing, but I'd have to learn how to catch crappie if I lived closer.

In the next week or two, Stockton should be stupid good. I hope y'all appreciate and enjoy what you have.

[Walcrabass]

Ham,

I have fished a few lakes in your home state. Lake DeGray, Lake Greason, Lake Ouchita. You have some pretty good ones too!!! Caught more fish at Ouchita and Greason than you can imagine. Ouchita has got to be a premier Bass lake for medium sized ones. Caught 21 Wipers between 10 and 12 pounds on Lake Degray in one morning!!!!! Isn't is great to live in this part of the United States and enjoy things???? Makes you wonder why some people don't fish.....

[waterpossum]

Glad you had a good visit to Stockton Lake. It truly is a jewel of a lake. From most of the posts I've read here over the years, there is a vast majority of people that like the lake for it's great fishing AND the beauty and unclutered landscape. Commercial development lakeside is nearly non existent. I see your from MT Home. My 90 year old mother lives in Harrison and my first trip to a lake was Norfork back in the 50's. I travel to Harrison about once a month from here in Joplin and it takes only about 2 hours 30 minutes so you should be able to make it to Stockton in 3:30. The crappie fishing in the river arms earlier was phenomenal the main lake should come on great in the next two weeks(a little later than usual) Fishing under lights in mid to late may can be a blast. My last trip a week ago to the main lake wasn't that great, but the trip is what you make of it and motoring back in one of the feeder creeks I saw an Eagle feeding it's two young on the edge of it's nest. As far as finding brush for crappie there are signs on the bank(green) denoting brushpiles usually 15-25' deep.