Tough Stockton fishing!

[Oberst]

I've always camped in my truck at Stockton and fished mostly in the State Park area.  Last week my wife got us a cabin and although the weather looked like it would be hot and calm I was confident we could at least troll up some crappie for a fish fry or two.  Man, that didn't work out!  In the past I've always been able to get some decent crappie trolling.  I'd run dipsy's or clip weights to some lines to cover the water column down to 20 feet.  Typically ran lures like these on 10 pound fluro leaders:

It's not like we got nothing trolling, but close to it.  Just small crappies.

So tried running spinners deep, right off the bottom, and did little there too.  Then switched to a single rig, like this one:

Ran half crawlers and got some fish; mostly white bass but some walleye, all 13", like this one.  Normally I get some walleye there are keepers mixed in.  Nope.

I had to run my big motor as my trolling batteries were acting up, but was able to stay around 1.5 mph.  Caught some bluegill too but not the big bruisers that are a pretty nice consolation. I have a small Yeti cooler I keep in the boat for a pop and crawlers.  The state park raccoons had no problem opening that up.  Wired it shut after that.  What if I had a dozen nice crappie in there!

So my wife is in the boat for three days and we catch nearly nothing.  Now she's wondering what I've been doing on all those trips to Stockton!  I'm wondering too .  .  .

And its not like we didn't see fish; here's a finder shot loaded with them.  I know they are smaller fish, but they don't look like bait fish either.  I figured some crappie or bluegill in there.  Guess that's a reason for a camera.

No doubt the guys who fish the hot summer days regularly would have a better story than this to tell!

 

[MrGiggles]

Been pretty quiet on Facebook too. Guys are catching bass, but that's about all.

I've been waiting almost 2 weeks now on a shift cable, haven't been out in a while.

[Smithvillesteve]

Crawlers in your Yeti????? You win the Powerball? Walleye boys have been pretty quiet on here lately. It was hot for awhile. 

[Oberst]

I got that yeti when I camped in Northern Wisconsin for several days at a time away from any services.  In hot weather it kept my bait for days, and a few cold ones too!!

[lmt-outfitters]

Had a tough week last week had trips 3 days had 33 shorts and 9 keepers.  Things turned off, keepers tough to come by.

[Sam]

We're still catching crappie, just not as good as a month ago.  It's a finesse deal - brush piles in 15-20 feet of water, small crappie tubes on 1/16 oz. #4 hook jig heads, 4 lb. flourocarbon line, drop down to the bottom and work 'em up SLOW.  We use real sensitive rods and the bite is very light.  If it feels just a little funny, or heavy, or maybe a slight tap, SET THE HOOK.  That's either a bite or a stick that will hang you up good - there's no way to tell so either way, set the hook.  Lots of hang-ups, breaking off, and re-tying practice for sure!

Partner and I got 11 nice keeper crappie up to 12" in a half-day today, but we threw back four times that many short crappie.  There were discussions here a while back where some people were concerned that there aren't enough undersize crappie in Stockton now to provide good fishing in future seasons.  Ha - don't worry about that, we're catching lots and lots of 6 to 9-inchers now, both white crappie and black crappie mixed in the same brush piles.

Here's a strange thing, maybe someone here can explain it to me.  A month ago we were catching lots of crappie about the same way, but they were big males of both species with very few females and hardly ever an undersize fish.  Now that's completely changed - lots of short fish of both species, gender unknown, and a few keepers that are all female white crappie that are either empty of eggs or have just a few residual eggs that are being re-absorbed.  We can't find any keeper males or any keeper black crappie of either gender now - I wonder what's up  with that and what's coming next.

[straw hat]

Interesting Sam. Have fished for crappie heavy the last 4 weeks. Averaging 30 to 40 a day but usually only 2 to 4 keepers each trip. They run around 10 ft deep. Of the approximately 140 crappie in those four days all were black crappie except 3!!  No white crappie. All caught on brush piles. Go figure.

[Sam]

12 hours ago, straw hat said:

Interesting Sam. Have fished for crappie heavy the last 4 weeks. Averaging 30 to 40 a day but usually only 2 to 4 keepers each trip. They run around 10 ft deep. Of the approximately 140 crappie in those four days all were black crappie except 3!!  No white crappie. All caught on brush piles. Go figure.

Straw hat, I think I know why that is.  We've quit fishing brush piles in less than 15 feet of water lately because we've found they're full of short black crappie with no keepers.  The few keeper crappie we're catching are whites coming from brush piles near 20 feet deep, and even then they're mixed in with mostly short fish.  We're having to hit a lot of brush piles, too - one or two legal fish off a spot if we're lucky, then we have to move on.

[straw hat]

Interesting as we stopped fishing the brush piles over 10' because we caught no crappie of any kind and never marked any fish either. Maybe those brush piles are the wrong kind of trees.  lol

[olfishead]

Guys, Don't forget the zillions of crappies caught over the last 6 months taken to the grease by the zillions of anglers on the lake. This is what I expected and predicted back in May. I know some folks don't  believe you can appreciably effect the population by harvest but after years of studying fish populations I can guarantee that once the crappie reach the 10 inch LL the densities drop off drastically due to fishing pressure. And we had PRESSURE this year like none other. Sure glad to hear about the sub-legals though, pray for a good year class this year.