Mother Stockton Was Generous This Weekend

[9LB]

Fished both Saturday and Sunday and Stockton was at her best, EVER ! Saturday was quite a bit better then Sunday.

1st - Bass = It is flat out game on. Caught them all day long up shallow throwing green salamander, purple jig and trailer, clown stickbait and a small bluegill square bill. I am sure you could of thrown anything at them. water was 64 degrees We must of caught 40 plus each day ? 3 bags of Salamanders ! Pulled out to 10- 15 foot of water and started getting into the bigger 3-5 pounders. Must of had 15 over 3.5 lbs. You can not fish shallow enough, little deeper = much better fish.

2nd -Walleyes =My best 2 days of walleye fishing ever and I have had some pretty good days. Quantity was there but Man these were some real fatties. Had 2 limits each day, we threw back the big one's. We had 5 over 24 inches and one real nasty girl at 28" kept the smaller one's for the frying pan. They were off main lake points and you could catch them on the worm BUT I was throwing jerkbaits and blubill colored crank baits on the 1st 1/2 of the same coves I was bass fishing and it was game on. I have never caught this many big walleyes ! Drug the 24" bottom bouncer around some points Sun morning and got into them again with a crawler. My regular bottom bouncer = 0 bites. The 24" caught 5. Look for the Shad, As soon as you would see them following your bait you would nail 2-3 Eyes. I have complained about Stockton's small Walleyes I hope this trend continues.

I got the pics on my camera, will upload. Getting ready for the KVD on the Rock Saturday.

[powerdive]

Looking forward to seeing those walleye pics, 9LB. Thanks for a great report!

[frying eyes]

Saturday was a great day! It was my best walleye day on stockton. I also let the big ones go, only kept the ones 15in-17in.

[kwall]

Glad to hear Stockton is producing some nice sized eyes this year , thanks for throwing some back -- wish the MDC would move the length up to 16" next year so we could catch bigger ones all year long

[mjk86]

Cant wait to see those pics and cant wait to get down to stockton!!!

[9LB]

MO just needs to have a Walleye Season. I never heard of not having a season ?? Up north opening day of walleye season was a bigger deal then opening day of deer season. Wife's got the pics on the camera supposed to send them to me. Got some new fancy camera that supposedly can send them right to the Web but I can not figure it out. Them bog eyes get that extra set of bones no sense messing with them and the filet blade fits em just perfect.

Got anice big bag to cook tonight. I'll be on the Rock fishing the KVD this weekend. Stockton is so good that if I had not already paid I would skip it and go back this weekend.

[powerdive]

I agree. March and the first half of April should be closed on walleyes to protect the spawning run. If they did that, you'd see more big fish and bump the average size of creeled fish.

In high water springs, the walleye spawn is successful. But even more important, closing the season would eliminate the rampant meat-hogging that removes so many of the larger eyes from the system.

It's really hard for me to get excited about fishing Stockton when Bull Shoals is going, because of the big difference in average fish size. I'd much rather catch six 18-25 inch eyes at Bull than thirty 13-17 inch eyes at Stockton.

[9LB]

I have yet to fish Bull Shoals. I need to get on it.

[REDSOXWSCHAMP]

I agree. March and the first half of April should be closed on walleyes to protect the spawning run. If they did that, you'd see more big fish and bump the average size of creeled fish.

In high water springs, the walleye spawn is successful. But even more important, closing the season would eliminate the rampant meat-hogging that removes so many of the larger eyes from the system.

It's really hard for me to get excited about fishing Stockton when Bull Shoals is going, because of the big difference in average fish size. I'd much rather catch six 18-25 inch eyes at Bull than thirty 13-17 inch eyes at Stockton.

If they did that, they would have to do the same for bass

[powerdive]

If they did that, they would have to do the same for bass

Whatever. Bass don't interest me. And as the biologists said, they don't need protection.

Up north, all gamefish seasons close during primary spawning seasons. However, in much of that area, the bass actually spawn after the gamefish season re-opens. Doesn't seem to matter.