Keepers still missing

[dprice]

On 8/9/2017 at 9:14 AM, blacknoseddace said:

Can't wait to see more on this one. Are the quality fish just roaming open water following Shad which makes them hard to pin down like others have stated on the forum? Most of us love to fish our favorite techniques because we have confidence in them. 

Large mouth  learn  same as any thing else   

 

[redshad]

Some of the guys I have talked to say that a defined thermocline has never developed this year on Stockton due to the high waters earlier this year. That is keeping the fish more scatter out and not setting up in large schools in normal summertime places.  I still wonder why the bass on Stockton are so skinny. 

[rps]

2 hours ago, redshad said:

Some of the guys I have talked to say that a defined thermocline has never developed this year on Stockton due to the high waters earlier this year. That is keeping the fish more scatter out and not setting up in large schools in normal summertime places.  I still wonder why the bass on Stockton are so skinny. 

The lack of hard thermocline has complicated Table Rock as well.

 

[Dutch]

2 hours ago, redshad said:

Some of the guys I have talked to say that a defined thermocline has never developed this year on Stockton due to the high waters earlier this year. That is keeping the fish more scatter out and not setting up in large schools in normal summertime places.  I still wonder why the bass on Stockton are so skinny. 

For the same reason white bass don't get to 4# down there, no threadfin shad.  Much of their food outgrows them when they are small and they grow up kind of skinny.

[redshad]

You may be right, Dutch.   Also the gizzard shad can take the colder water better and you don't have the huge shad die offs.  The bass will feast on the dying shad and stay fat all winter.    On the other hand there are thousands of 1 1/2 inch gizzard shad swing around right now as there is every late summer/ fall.  Those are not to big for the smaller bass to eat.  They are chasing and eating them you can see them blowing up on top.  Some are whites but a lot of them are blacks.   About a week ago I had a group of 3-4 pound blacks come up right beside my boat as I was dragging the big worm around a point.   I was able to drop the worm and grab my spook fast enough to catch one before they went down.   It would have went 3.2 to 3.3 and was a chunky healthy fish.  I fish that point for about an hour never caught a keeper on the big worm and the nice school fish never came back up.  I was guess I was lucky to catch that one.  

[livingtofish]

Just wondering, with the fish suspended has anyone been throwing big worms around timber. I remember a few years back catching them like that at Stockton.

[audiochem]

The trolling crappie/walleye bite has been too good lately. Anyone trying a Carolina rig? If you don't like drop shot, that's usually the way to go this time of year. Of course, usually it's 100 degrees and dry as a bone.

[redshad]

Went Saturday morning with the wife and boy up to CC.  We launched about 6:15 and headed down lake.  I tried to get them to hit a moving bait early. I threw a spinner bait, chatter bait and squarebill and rattle trap with no response.  I did catch 3 on a wopper plopper with one keeper.   My wife was catching some on her menance so we slowed down with 7" power worm and the menance.  We ended up catching 17 with 6 keepers.  My stepson caught a nice 3.6 on the power worm.  It was a typical Stockton bass had 4-5 pound head on it and a skinny little body. That fish should have been over 4 pounds easy but was really skinny.  (See pic)  We found most of our fish on the flatter banks.  Sitting in 10ft of water and throwing to the bank.  most of them were in 2 to 5 foot of water.   We thought momma had her a big one but it turned out to be a 4.5 drum.  It put up a good fight and made her squeal on a couple of good runs. 

Stepson woke up Sunday (10:00 am early riser)  wanting to go back to the lake so he and I went up that afternoon.  We launched at Aldridge at 12:30 we went and tied a couple shallow flats were there was some shad activity.  We caught 7 or 8 on the flats in the shallow muddy water with 2 keepers.  Those fish were shallow less than 3 ft  a lot of times the trolling motor was kicking up mud.  We move down the lake and started flipping wood in some deeper banks.  He was throwing a 10" worm and I was flipping a jig.  We were the deeper banks but targeting wood in 3 to 6 foot of water.  We caught 16 flipping with 5 keepers.  Nothing big all the keepers were 15 to 17 inchers.  We were off the water a little before 7.  I think we would have had better luck on the flats if there would have been a little sun.  My experience is that it takes some sun to make the shad more visible and get the bass to really chase them.  The water temps up the river was running around 78. 

It was a pretty good weekend on Stockton.  We had a better keeper to short ratio than we have been having the past few trips.  Looking forward to the fall.