Future Crappie fishing at Stockton lake

[olfishead]

Has anyone been catching sub-legal crappie at Stockton?  If so what % of your total catch? My concern is that with the extremely high fishing pressure this year and apparent absence of year classes from 2017 and 2018 that the crappie fishing is going to get really tough for at least the next two years. I hope I'm wrong!

 

[MrGiggles]

Not many so far. Probably 1-2 in 10. 

Facebook is plastered with limit stories right now. Lotta fish getting hauled out.

[olfishead]

May be different for different areas of the lake but I'm around 1 in 20. Most are 11 to 13 inches.

[Old dog 417]

2 hours ago, olfishead said:

May be different for different areas of the lake but I'm around 1 in 20. Most are 11 to 13 inches.

Yep. X 2. 

I usually launch at Ruark Bluff and fish that area. What you're saying mimics my experience. I've been lucky enough to catch a couple 14" crappie too which for me

are exceptional sized crappie from Stockton.

Caught and tossed back a bunch of 6" white bass fishing in the spawning creek channels for crappie this year. A lot more than in prior years for whatever reason.

od

 

[olfishead]

56 minutes ago, Old dog 417 said:

Yep. X 2. 

I usually launch at Ruark Bluff and fish that area. What you're saying mimics my experience. I've been lucky enough to catch a couple 14" crappie too which for me

are exceptional sized crappie from Stockton.

Caught and tossed back a bunch of 6" white bass fishing in the spawning creek channels for crappie this year. A lot more than in prior years for whatever reason.

od

 

Yep, and I really hate to toss any white bass back, usually don't, knowing that they compete for food and space with the crappie (and other species) and probably also feed on those little crappie. It appears to me that the WB are slowly dominating the fishery. On the bright side, they are fun to catch, not bad eating and better than nothing.

[Lifes2Short]

I would also say that I catch one short Crappie for every 20 keepers. Not sure what that means for the future but it’s amazing the size of the Crappie to come out of that like in the last couple of years. 

[top_dollar]

https://fishing.mdc.mo.gov/reports/103019-prospect-report-stockton-lake

 

This also supports your observations.

[MrGiggles]

3 hours ago, top_dollar said:

https://fishing.mdc.mo.gov/reports/103019-prospect-report-stockton-lake

 

This also supports your observations.

Interesting that they say the lake is dominated with large black crappie. Almost all of what I catch is large whites, even when fishing heavy cover, where you would expect the blacks to be.

I have caught way more blacks in Pomme than in Stockton.

[olfishead]

It will be interesting to see if MDC's fall sampling shows a decent sized 2019 year class. They should have been 5-6 inches now. I haven't seen any of those, but I don't use minnows. You tend to catch more of the smaller fish with minnows. BLACK crappie tend to reproduce better in and inhabit clearer water, whites are the opposite. So, if you have several years of clear water conditions black crappie populations usually increase. That's why Truman lake has mostly whites,  it is a more turbid lake.. Also, whites seem to be a little easier to catch so as fishing pressure increases more whites get harvested.

[Sam]

We're catching more short crappie this year than we did last year, about 1 out of 10 with most fish measuring 11" to 13".  Catching far more white crappie than black crappie, about a 5 to 1 ratio there, and the black crappie are generally shorter than the white crappie.

Last year, 2019, should have produced a great hatch of crappie as the high water level kept many from being caught in late spring and most of the summer, and the young'uns had the heavy cover of land bushes to hide in.