Walleye at Stockton...

[Guvner]

Just found out about this site and figured I'd check it out.. I just got back from Stockton Tuesday. Things sure have changed. Almost everything but the bass fishing seemed different. I used to slow my cranks down and would pick up an occasional walleye. Not so this time. Did troll and got a couple short ones. I'll be reading here quite a bit as my skills on things my 6 and 13 year old can do will definitely have to improve. We tipped jigs with minnows and nightcrawlers and never got a hit in any of the old flat areas I did alright on in the past. Not sure what really works anymore. Getting another graph tomorrow as my Fisheasy seems to have bit the dust.

Thanks... Guvner..

[coyotewhacker]

Welcome to Outdoor Missouri, and especially to the walleye forum. The guys on here will be more than glad to pass on tips that will be helpful. Since Stockton is one of the primary tournament site lakes, there is a lot of walleye chasing experience available here. Stockton this time of year tends to be a live bait bite during the daytime, while the evening bite is often shallow and stick baits are the ticket. To check on the latest fishing reports, you can go back a month or two in the posts here and find the links to a couple of guide websites. Those guys don't get real specific, but they will tell you what general technique is working, and it's reasonably up to date.

This is also a very sociable group, and we have been known to have walleye fishing "get togethers", fish fry events, and many of us belong to the same walleye fishing organization. When it comes to walleye fishing, I am pretty much the rookie of the bunch, but we have some Yankee transplants who have been chasing them for years, and from time to time we have some of the FLW and PWT walleye professionals check in. One of the really great things about hanging out with us is that "our" pros give us a chance to pre-fish (or fish for real) with them in the big tournaments that were held on Bull Shoals this year. For those of us who were able to take advantage of those opportunities, it was an exceptional learning experience.

Several of the regulars take their kids to Stockton, so chances are pretty good that you will run into some of them eventually. Taking kids fishing is highly encouraged, as they are the future of the sport. So again, welcome aboard and hope you enjoy your time spent here.

Uhhhhhhh....I hesitate to ask how you got your "handle"....

[powerdive]

Guvner, welcome! Our usual flats haven't been working this summer either, but other guys have done pretty well trolling cranks at 20 to 24 feet on the edges of flats and across mainlake points. My daughter and I had a fine day last weekend rigging leeches on a shallow hump. They're out there, but this year's weather and water seem to have affected their location some...might have to seek out new spots.

[Guvner]

I have another hobby. Treasure hunting with metal detectors... It has forums too...

We had a guy we called the "Mayor" and he decided I must be the "Guvner" since it was my site... Name kind of stuck.. It's the hoosier spelling and we have a lot of Australians who frequent the site and like the name...

Bought a FishElite 500C tonight as well as a crappie light. Anyone do anything with one at Stockton? Was thinking you could anchor off a point and things might start to happen over a few hours. Am I displaying wishful thinking?

Anyway... Glad I found you guys. I used to keep my boat at the Stockton State Park Marina but moved out when they dumped Doug.

Thanks.. Guvner..

[coyotewhacker]

I personally have not fished over a light, but a lot of crappie and summer walleye fishermen use one on Stockton.
Let us know how that Fish Elite 500C works....it is one that I am looking at to get GPS mapping. I went to Stockton late this afternoon and fooled around south of the Y Bridge, but couldn't find what I was looking for. I had a young fellow with me, so we eventually fired up and went back into Sons, and then into Googer and fished our way out. We were using small jigs and a bluish color swimming minnow I had found at Wal Mart. We caught a few small bass, a couple of crappie, one drum, and on the south bank below the creek mouth I finally found the white bass. They were small but hungry. After catching several, the school moved off and I couldn't find them again, so we fired up and came in before it got too dark to run without lights. No problems at all from the Express outboard. Ran like a champ the entire time. Better not say too much nice about it, though. It might hear and backslide. Did have one unusual thing happen out in the main lake.....I had marked a spot with a regular orange floating marker. It seemed that it kept moving in the wind, but I was busy fishing and watching the graph screen and didn't think too much about it. We both got busy watching a pontoon boat full of a group of Mennonite folks who appeared to be crappie fishing. After several minutes of that, I had lost sight of my marker buoy. Some kid on a jet ski, who had been talking to the people in the pontoon boat, fired it up and rode over about a hundred yards south of us, and we saw him pick up the buoy marker, then put it back in the water. It had drifted that far in the stiff breeze. When we went to get it, only three or four feet of line had peeled off before it tangled....the weight was several feet off the bottom.
At least he didn't take the marker and head for the marina.
It is quite entertaining to watch a group of Mennonites on a pontoon boat....the men are all in starched and pressed overalls, and the women are all in long dresses and sunbonnets. Didn't see a single bikini in the bunch. Arrrrrgh.

[Guvner]

The GPS thing did me in. I was originally going with the 320C. Then decided on the bigger screen and then they showed me the GPS and the addon's... Well you know... Shouldn't have but did... I use a GPS to find things showing on old maps so should fit right in. Plus some of my memory cards from the digital cameras will work in there. (SD's) It will make it easy to find things if all I need to do is motor to GPS co-ordinates.

Sounds like you're right on the lake. I'm all the way up in St. Charles, MO. It takes me a while to get there.

Shame about the bikini's...

Guvner..

[Guvner]

Oh yeah... What is an Express outboard? Sounds like I missed a previous event... I think I'll do a search and see if you've been talking about it before..

[trackerteam6]

Guvner.. You'll find your night lite works best in the Dark of the moon. I use one quite often, not on Stockton but at Bull sholas and PommeDe Terre. I use them off main lake points next to deep water. The Express is the boat and motor CW has. He's been having a world of trouble with the motor and looks like he finally got the problen solved.

[coyotewhacker]

TT6 has truly "been there, done that" with the Express and the outboard. We fished together in an early spring tournament down on Bull Shoals, and shortly after we blasted off the engine died, leaving us to fish within sight of the marina all day. It eventually turned out to be six carburetor bowls full of Polk County road dust...something that twelve years "down south" in Louisiana could not do, but our roads here are so bad and so poorly maintained that I will probably have to have the carb job done every couple of years just to clean out the road dust from towing it. The voters here probably don't even think about the hidden cost of having such horrendous roads....short tire life, poor gas mileage from clogged air filters, premature failure of shock absorbers, and the fact that we haven't seen a law enforcement vehicle out where I live in over five years because the road conditions don't allow patrols. School buses have no choice...the kids have to get to school, but the sheriff and his predecessor do not send their patrol cars off the paved roads because of the destructive nature of the roads. The county commission dumps some kind of gravel on the surface, which rapidly is ground into dust, and they pat themselves on the back for doing a fine job by sending out a grader crew to turn the gravel over, bringing the dust back to the surface. Yes, we are truly blessed with a fine county government, which recently won a court case that in effect said they are not required to do ANYTHING other than pay county employees. I am amazed that any business would even consider moving into Polk County, given the sorry state of affairs we have.

[Guvner]

You have to have a pet name for things...

I have an older bass boat with a 115 hp. (Hydrasport) Have it now rigged for pulling a skier, bass fishing and maybe a little scuba diving. Just put the new telescoping ladder off the back. Once I get the graph on there I might be done for a short while.

Need an anchor now. Haven't had one of them for a long while. Anchormate I guess...

Oh... Is anyone using the map software that you can buy for the Eagle's and others? I talked to Navionics today and they told me their SD card had a one year warranty and you weren't permitted to make any back ups. If you ruined it you basically had to buy another one. Even Microsoft lets you replace software if you are the registered owner. I'm hoping I can scan my existing maps into Fugawi or OziExplorer and make my own maps. Will find out about that later tonight.

Guvner..

[reelxtc]

Guv,

that's the deal with the Navionics chips. Don't accidently erase it or try to copy 'em on your PC.

With that in mind, they're great and I just bought the Lowrance Elite maps for the Southern region. I have the Reelbottom 1' maps for Mille Lacs and I wouldn't be without them on any lake where they're available. I had a Eagle Fish Elite 320 on the bow for GPS only, just took it off and gave it to Action Jackson for the REELXTC JR. I would spring for the extra bucks for a Lowrance if you can afford it. Check out the deals on Ebay and Walleye 1st
http://walleye.outdoorsfirst.com/board/f...isplaytype=flat

[Guvner]

If I'm getting this right you are saying the Lowrance Maps deserve a look. If you are referring to buying the Lowrance over the Eagle I already own the Eagle and have never seen anything but price difference since they own both. I have been wrong many times before so feel free to educate me.

Lowrance offered some freebie maps on their site. I'm also wondering if I can scan any of my topo maps in and create maps the Eagle will use. I use a program called Fugawi that allows me to make my own maps for the computer. Anywhere you move the mouse you read out the lat longs once you've entered 3 co-ordinates on the scanned in map.

Can you use the downloadable maps on the Lowrance site without already having the program or do you just add them to the one you buy? (Presumably that would be right..)

Any information you can give me to bring me up to speed would be appreciated. Fugawi is at www.fugawi.com .

Thanks... Guvner..

[Guvner]

Wow... You're right about this comparison... I was originally comparing the Eagle 320C against the Lowrance X67 and there wasn't much difference other than $80 in price. I just got back from Bass Pro and the Lowrance LLS-332C had a ton more power and 480 X 480 pixel resolution versus the 320 X 320 of the Eagle 500C. All this for an extra $100.

Only problem is they don't have it in stock here or in Springfield. Now to take the Eagle back and deal with not having anything for a couple weeks.

Thanks for planting the seeds of doubt... Guvner..

[coyotewhacker]

Lots of the guys around here use the Topo map program. It can't be used with your on the water GPS, but it does have the majority of the Missouri lakes, and you can point-n-click to get GPS coordinates for any location. It is designed to make your own custom maps, probably similar to Fugawi...it basically is the Fishing Hot Spots maps digitized and put on a CD. You can manipulate almost any data on the maps....depth contours, map features, change contour line colors, adjust for lake depth changes, etc.
If the Hot Spot maps on MMC cards work as well in the on the water GPS as this has worked in the PC, BPS or Cabelas can consider another one sold.

[Shannon Woods]

IMAGINE THAT!!!! Bass Pro not having something in stock and Springfield is the "Headquarters". TR would have the BEST that Lowrance makes BUT "I am sorry we do not have it in stock but you can order it out of our catolog" I heard this about 15 too many times! Sorry PD I hope this doesn't get under your skin but they could do better. ReelXTC your lucky living right there by Cabela's, I have been in that store a few times and I was very impressed!