Stockton Walleye Fishing

[bumps2]

FYI, Sent an e-mail to the MDC asking why, at least to me, walleye fishing was poorer in 2003 & 2004 than the previous two years and here is his reply.

"Dear Mr. Williamson,

Thank you for your inquiry about walleye fishing in Stockton Lake. Stockton walleye management under the Missouri Walleye Initiative began in 1998 and is still progressing. Walleyes were stocked at a rate of 25-30 small fingerlings per acre in 1998 and in every even year since. Angler survey information shows that the harvest objectives are usually met each year and have increased 10 fold since the late 1990s.

Gizzard shad, the main walleye forage in the reservoir, was poor in 2003. Consequently, walleye growth was reduced in 2003 and the majority of two year old fish stocked in 2002 did not reach legal length (15 inches) in 2004 as usual. Many of the 2002 fish that would have been harvested in 2004 are still in the reservoir available for anglers in 2005. I am expecting a good year in 2005. I hope that your walleye fishing experiences will be similar to what you experienced in 2000 and 2001.

Please contact me if you desire more indepth information.

Thanks,

Timothy J. Banek
Fisheries Management Biologist
Missouri Department of Conservation
2630 N Mayfair
Springfield MO 65803
(417) 895-6881 ext. 1062"

I hope he's right

[powerdivehome]

Scott, there'll be easy limits of 16-17" walleyes, guaranteed, at least for the first half of the season! By midseason, harvest will take its toll...

That's my prediction, and I'm sticking to it.

[coyotewhacker]

Shhhhhhh......once the spawning run is over, we don't want the whole world over there....gotta save some for the summer tournaments. Now what color spinner blades did you say would be most effective?????..............

[bumps2]

PD,

I hope you're right about the first half of the season. And I agree with you about your prediction on the later season except, I hate to say, I might have to add the word "over" to harvest. Not sayin everybody does this but am sure some do.

[Ozark]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't think overharvesting would be a problem with walleyes around here. Keeper walleyes are too elusive to get overharvested, at least for me.

Conservation has the limit set at only 4 fish. Also, all my walleyes have come from Bull Shoals where there's an 18 inch minimum. If I ever catch any real big ones, I'll return them, but that hasn't happened yet.

Out of about 100 fishing trips last year, I took home limits of walleyes twice. Maybe 4 other ones during the year also, from trips where I didn't get a limit. So that's 12 walleyes taken out of the lake in a year by a guy who went fishing a LOT.

Of course I mostly wasn't fishing specifically for them, but most people don't get to go that many times either. I'd think the walleye population should be able to handle that much "harvesting", at least.

[coyotewhacker]

Sam...you are right on about the walleye harvest at Bull Shoals, and the fact that many of us return almost all the fish to the water. However, based on past observation at Stockton, that is not necessarily the case. You can go up and down Bull Shoals and meet maybe two or three other boats. On Stockton, if you head out to "The Flats" on a weekend morning, you will be in the middle of twenty or more boats, all fishing for walleyes that are NOT put back for the most part....you will see everything from big 20 foot ski type boats, to bass boats, to "walleye" type boats, to entire families of locals (400 lb dad, 250 pound mom, and a couple of 200 pound "accidents") all stuffed into a 12 foot aluminum jon boatwith a 10 horse kicker on back, and not a PFD anywhere. I haven't yet seen a canoe or a kayak out there, but I'm sure it has happened. On the second morning of the July tournament last summer, I counted 22 boats fishing the flats at one time. So if you want to call that "overharvest", I am not one to argue with you. In spite of that Chinese fire drill out there, lots of people were catching fish...and the tournament "big fish" came off the flats from right under all those boats.

[bumps2]

Let me clarify what I was trying to say but first I hope no one took it personally with what I said about "over harvesting". I certainly didn't mean to insinuate anyone on this board was doing that. From what I've read here I think you all are like me in that we do more "under harvesting" than anything else.

Actually, I think there are two different aspects to "over harvesting", one legal and the other not. The first is, as CW said, just too many folks keeping and possessing their legal limits of fish. Is Stockton able to sustain that kind of pressure? I don't know. I do know, when I first fished Stockton in 2001, the ramp at Rourk Bluff wasn't half full on weekends. Now you can hardly find a place to park on weekends.

The second is folks who catch their legal limit and then another and another and another without any regard to adhering to possession limits. That's what upsets me. Ozark, I'm like you in that if I catch a limit a couple of times during the summer I'm feeling good. Maybe illegal "over harvesting" doesn't occur on Stockton to the point where it's affecting the quality of fishing. I don't know the answer to that either. All I know for sure is the fishing was a lot better in 2001 & 2001 than it was in 2003 & 2004. And I sure marked a lot of shad the last two years. Something is different!

Ok, I'm off my stump now. Good fishin to everyone and hopefully the walleye will cooperate

[coyotewhacker]

b-2......I don't think anybody here would interpret what you said as accusing them of overharvesting. There will always be the "game hogs" who will take all they can, whether it be deer, squirrels, walleyes, bass, or any other wild game. MDC will get a small percentage of them, but most of them are way better at avoiding the law than the agents are at catching them. On the more popular lakes these days I suppose the water patrol guys have their hands full just keeping a lid on drunk boaters. Nabbing somebody with a couple or three extra walleyes is probably way down the list of priorities. Double and triple limits are a common occurrence. If you go over to Fellows Lake north of Springfield, you will see an old guy come in almost every morning, catch his limit of crappie, leave, then return to take another limit, and sometimes he does this three or four times during the same day. The hotshots who will kick your butt for having 41 horsepower on your boat instead of the approved 40 do nothing about it. Go figure. MDC agents will walk two or three miles through freezing water to maybe catch somebody illegally fishing on the James River, but they can't seem to catch this guy who puts in and takes out at the only ramp on a small lake...again, go figure.
Fortunately, southwest Missouri is blessed with a vast amount of good fishing water, but the walleyes are a limited commodity in only a few lakes, and when they are most vulnerable, that's when the opportunistic will take advantage. It's human nature. Maybe it's time to get after our conservation experts to impose seasons on the walleyes just like on stream bass.....you could still fish for them, but could not keep them when they are most vulnerable at the spawn. That won't sit well with a lot of people, myself included, but if it would make an overall improvement in the fishery, it might be something to consider. After all, it was hunters who finally got Missouri to implement hunting seasons to protect the resource.

[Ozark]

Bumps2 - Naw, I didn't take it personal. Didn't even think about it.

I'm worried about the declining fishing around here also. The population explosion is to blame, I'm sure. Lots and lots of people are moving into this area, and there are more fishermen than ever before.

It worries me. I went through the same thing over the years when we lived in California. At one time there I had lots of good fishing holes, but by the time we moved out they were all gone or unproductive. Too many people - but there's not much we can do about that.

[coyotewhacker]

Ozark....due to numerous character flaws and genetic defects, I used to be quite a fan of Johnathan Swift, who had the same vocation as you. He once wrote an essay about the rapidly increasing Irish population which was taken quite seriously at the time. As I remember, it was called "A Modest Proposal". Perhaps we could lobby the Missouri legislature to do the same thing with all new SW Missouri immigrants....new potential fishermen who arrive here after a certain date (to be determined) would have to "buy in" before they would be allowed to fish "our" waters. All of us, of course, would be grandfathered in. You will note that I did not bring up the proposal in the essay......but I think it could work in this instance.

[Tigerhaze]

Ozark said:
I'm worried about the declining fishing around here also. The population explosion is to blame, I'm sure. Lots and lots of people are moving into this area, and there are more fishermen than ever before.

Being a native Missourian that knew Branson when it was only the Baldknobbers and SDC, and Rockaway Beach when it was a true resort, I have seen that area go through a lot of changes. I think the biggest noticeable change I have seen in recent years has been the intense pressure on white bass streams during their spawning runs. You can't hardly get a boat up Beaver Creek this time of year. The James above McCord Bend reminds me of the trout opener. I'm sure the smallies in these streams are getting hit harder.

Based on the shock surveys, I would say there are plenty of walleyes out there even with the increased fishing pressure. It seems to me that it would be pretty hard to fish out a large impoundment like BS unless there is a bust in the forage (shad) spawns. MDC does need to step up enforcement to match the increasing numbers of fishermen to ensure there isn't a decline if there is a long-term bust in numbers of shad.

The main downer for me is the decline in the solitude of the lakes. There was a time on Bull Shoals when you would see very few boats, even on weekends. Of course, that goes for much of the Ozarks, even away from the tri-lakes area.

On the original topic, has anyone heard if the walleyes at Stockton are moving up towards the riprap on the dam to spawn yet? It shouldn't be too far away.

[coyotewhacker]

TH...walleyesrus can give you a more detailed account of the movement on Stockton, but for the past couple of weeks they have been staging on the points nearest the dam. I graphed a ton of nice fish on both side of two points on the west side of the lake that were the #2 and #1 points out from the face of the dam. I think walleyesrus was finding a similar situation on the east side of the lake.
If you put much stock in the full moon / walleye spawning relationship, then they should be on the rocks right now.

[Tigerhaze]

I'll be making a trip down that way very soon...I think it was a little later last year but if it warms up next week as much as they are saying I think it could very well be on its way!

[coyotewhacker]

We would have a Stockton get together in your honor, but most of this outfit will be really busy over the next week or so....however, there may be a couple or three regulars who might want to give Stockton a shot, so when you head down, post up and maybe have some company to fish with.
Good luck on getting some nice 'eyes while you're here.
Just be nice and leave a few for us locals to catch over the summer. You might give fishnxs a shout....he knows Stockton pretty well, for crappie, walleyes, and catfish.