Doty-Lilley Crappie Trip 4/29-30

[Phil Lilley]

We left Branson about 2:30 yesterday for Stockton, Marsha, MonaCheri, Duane and myself, with Duane's boat in tow.  Our target was to put in at Sons Creek and fish the evening, stay at Stone Creek Lodge (good friends Kris and Amanda Nelson, owners) and fish again Monday morning before heading back.

Put in about 4:30 and headed out.  Water temp about 64 degrees I think and windy.  Seemed like it was out of the SE but was hard to tell not being used to the lake and direction.  Duane has a nice fish finder... and we looked for fish.  We went over to the left bank heading out and started there.  

Duane is going to have to add to my report because he has better knowledge of water temp and depth.

I caught the first fish on a chart/red tube jig - a 19 inch walleye.  Thought it was on!  But of course there's a big leaning curve in most fishing trips.  We dinked around that area, up and down the bank, marking fish all over the place but couldn't get them to bite.  Did catch one here and there, mostly keepers.  Then MonaCheri stumbled onto the pattern... trolling.

I'm glad we caught in on the video... she set her rod down to check her phone.  She's a birder and had been "talking" to a little yellow bird (MC can chime in and add to the report too if she wants to name the little bird).  After catching one while not doing anything but moving along, she caught another one, and it was one.

We ran out of deep water and turned around.  Catching picked up as it got darker.  Started catching some shorts but most were over 11 inches.  The battery ran out on my GoPro and it was on silent so we didn't notice it until we were done.  Too bad... we had doubles and triples... lots of stumbling around trying to net fish and untangle lines.

We ended with 25 crappie, 7 whites and the walleye.

After cleaning our fish at the lodge, we decided we weren't going to get out early Monday - the girls vetoed 5 a.m. wake up call.  So we didn't get out he water till after 9 a.m. Monday.  The wind was already blowing, we tried the same area with little success.  The troll bite wasn't there.  Pulling up in a cut Kris told us about, we got out and headed inland looking for some mushrooms.  Found a few.

We ended finding some crappies on the south bank in deep water but they didn't want to play very hard.  We gave our 3 crappies and 1 white to a guy at the ramp, pulling out about 12:30.

We had a wonderful time... and the fishing was even pretty good.  Look forward to going back again.

 

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[MickinMO]

Trolling or drifting can be very rewarding there almost any time of year. If you can get a wind that will blow you from the back to the mouth of a long cove this time of year you can really get into the crappie. Roadrunners or 3" smoke grubs is what we caught them on growing up.

[MoCarp]

a drift sock was always in my boat on Stockton, with a pool float on the rope, it was the difference when fishing was tougher, point 6 up toward the dam, produced  bigger crappie and more walleyes for me, when everyone was pounding the creek arms. 

1/16 oz roadrunner heads (poured our own) white head swimming minnow body with a gold willow leaf blade was hard to beat as was chartreuse/ black /chartreuse silver blade, if we were after walleyes alone 1/8th black head /chartreuse blade and 1/2 crawler was our go-to...4lbs green mono...

also slip bobbers at night on main lake /secondary points will catch limits of walleyes from now till 2nd week in June, they sell bobbers that take a glow stick, or you can use a latern and the bobbers will jump out at you when the light is shined across the water (NOT IN TO IT) if you can get them, canadian leaches are my top bait at night, followed by crawlers and big shiners last

[fshndoug]

Mona was the better fisherwoman that day boys!

[MickinMO]

14 hours ago, MoCarp said:

a drift sock was always in my boat on Stockton, with a pool float on the rope, it was the difference when fishing was tougher, point 6 up toward the dam, produced  bigger crappie and more walleyes for me, when everyone was pounding the creek arms. 

The ol' 5 gallon does the trick too. We also used to catch bait and drift the flats outside Googer Creek in summer. Walleye when the sun was high and catfish at night. 

[MoCarp]

6 hours ago, MickinMO said:

The ol' 5 gallon does the trick too. We also used to catch bait and drift the flats outside Googer Creek in summer. Walleye when the sun was high and catfish at night. 

yeah I have done that, some nice cats in Stockton, that flats area has some dandy channels used to put a light out for shad  and toss a net and drift fish and would catch some nice channels and a few whites that way in summer