The only difference from the past? Those banks are under almost 15 feet of water now.
Like many Ozarks reservoirs, Stockton has been flooded for weeks — the result of heavy spring rains. Because rivers below Stockton have remained high, the Corps of Engineers has been unable to dump water.
That has flooded campgrounds, boat ramps and favorite fishing banks at Stockton.
But Jarman, a longtime guide on the Ozarks reservoir, will tell you that hasn’t affected his success rate. The walleyes are there — it’s just that they’re deeper than usual.
“The walleyes are relating to the old bank,” Jarman said as he trolled a crankbait off a main-lake point near the dam. “This has always been a good summer spot, and the fish are still here.
“It’s not like they left. They’re just relating to a different kind of structure now.”
Jarman has figured out how to catch them — by staying on the move and covering a lot of water.
That’s why you’ll often find him trolling medium-diving Berkley Frenzy crankbaits, following the contour of the old banks, these days. Normally, this isn’t his method of choice. But it’s hard to argue with success.
He and the fishermen he guides have been taking limits of walleyes daily for the last several weeks. Jarman credits much of this to his new-found mobile fishing style.
“These walleyes are coming off the spawn, and they’re feeding up before they move out to deeper water,” said Jarman, who runs the Specialized Guide Service. “But they’re scattered.
“The one thing they seem to have in common is that they’re relating to the old bank. But they’re not bunched up.
“That’s why you have to cover a lot of water.”
That’s what Jarman was doing on a hot day last week. He and two partners — Ken White and I — were trolling Berkley Frenzy crankbaits off a point where Jarman had found success in recent days. It didn’t take him long to realize the fish were there.
As he held a fishing rod in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, Jarman felt his crankbait suddenly lose its wiggle. A split-second later, he felt the dogged pull of a walleye.
Jarman finally got his catch to the surface and was greeted by the sight of yet another keeper fish.
“That one will go 18, 19 inches,” he said. “That’s a good-eating fish.”
And there were more where that one came from.
As Jarman worked back and forth along a stretch of bank that had been particularly productive, he and his fishing partners regularly caught fish.
By the time we were done, 12 keeper walleyes were in the live well — fish that were destined to be the main course of a tasty meal.
The high water might have hurt the bass and crappie fishing, with the abundance of new cover making it hard to reach the fish. But not the walleye fishing.
Walleyes have followed a routine, hitting the flats and points after recovering from the spawn to go on a feeding binge. The action has been outstanding.
“Right now, the walleye fishing is as good as it’s been for several years,” Jarman said. “We’re starting to get good numbers of fish in here again. And a lot of the fish we’ll catch are keepers (15 inches or longer).”
For that, fishermen can thank the Missouri Department of Conservation. Fisheries biologists stock the lake every other year, and these efforts are starting to pay off.
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