Stockton Lake

[Bluebasser86]

Any been to Stockton recently? A friend of mine wants to drive down and fish it Wednesday but it's a 2 1/2 hour drive I don't want to make if they aren't biting very well. Thanks in advance for any help!

[senile1]

I wish I could help you but I haven't fished it in a couple of years.  However, it is a beautiful lake and that is worth the price of going, in my opinion.  I live in Kansas City and when I have visited Stockton I always stay a few days.  If you're going for one day I can understand your concern. 

Below is a link for a report from October 14th. 

http://anglersfishinginfo.com/fishingreports/mo/mo.htm#STOCKTON

[Bluebasser86]

I haven't fished it since the last tourny I fished down there in 2005. If we go I was planning on heading up the river and fishing there since the shad (and hopefully the bass) should be heading up to the shallows there. I know last time I was there they were eating a tube pretty well in the river. That is the only time I've really fished it from a boat since I was old enough to actually know what I was doing! 

[KU_Bassmaster.]

That's one of those lakes that everytime I fish it I think to myself why I don't fish it more.  Such a pretty lake.  Last time was in 07 I think. :

[Jig Man]

Head up one of the rivers and get to the gazillions of shad. 

I fished there Friday and a white spinnerbait did the early morning job for me.  Then I used plastics.

Either put in at High Point or Rouark Bluff.

[Bluebasser86]

What type/color plastics were you fishing? I've had good luck with black neon tubes and green pumpkin purple tubes and green pumpkin trick worms. Not that I don't already have one of everything but just in case the bait monkey needs anything  : . He already got me to buy a new baitcasting combo for this weekend.

[Jig Man]

Green pumpkin and pumpkin seed are the main colors that I use even though I have a bunch of colors.

[senile1]

Bluebasser, did you go to Stockton, and if so, how did was the fishing?

[Bluebasser86]

We did go on Wednesday and did very well. My best baits were a green pumpkin purple coffee tube, a green pumpkin red flake trick worm on a shakey head, and a ghost colored xr50 rattlebait. My friend did well with a pb&j jig and a black magnum trick worm. We caught a few fish on spinnerbaits, rage andacondas, hula grubs, and shad colored cranks. Chunk rock banks in 6 to 10 feet of water was by far the best and it helped to have trees on it. We launche at rouark bluff and went up that river arm to the very back and caught fish all the way back out to the bridge by the boat ramp and then down the other river arm. I had one fish that was 4.29 on a shakey head and one that was 4.59 on the rattlebait  (if I could figure out how to put pictures up I'd post them!). I would have had a pretty solid limit for Stockton! My friend caught his only keeper that was about 16inches at the end of the day on the magnum trick worm. We also caught white bass and a few walleye on various baits. We did not fish the main lake at all though.

[fatmanslim247]

Where exactly where you at?

[Bluebasser86]

I can't give exact locations but I'm not trying to hide anything, I just don't know the lake very well so I really don't know what the arm I was in is called  . I can tell you this, we went into the very back of the western arm, all the way past highway 39 and fished back out. All of our fish were on chunk rock banks from 4-12 feet deep, almost none of them were right on the bank but they were close to it probably using it to pin the shad in and get an easy meal. We launched from Ruark Bluff and caught some fish around the highway H bridge but no keepers (minus one nice walleye that ate a jerkbait but he won't be making that mistake again!) Later in the day when the bite got tough we went back under Highway H into the next arm over and ran almost all the way to the Greenfield public use area (takes a long time with a 16ft aluminum boat and a 60hp motor). There is one stretch of docks on the outside bend a little bit before Greenfield and the bank just to the east of those docks was loaded with fish as it was last time I fished Stockton. Sorry I don't have specific names, I just knew where I wanted to fish and went there! If you have any more questions I'll do my best to help you out!