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Back in mid-April of 2008, at tournaments on a flooded Table Rock Lake, bags of fish crossed the scales that shook the Heartland Trails record books to their bindings.
Clear water butting against deep, rocky banks—typical fare on many southwest Ozarks lakes. And typical of that kind of fish habitat swims a special finned critter, known scientifically as Micropterus dolomieu and commonly as the smallmouth bass.
Stockton Lake, site of the recent Heartland Trails Elite year-end championship, is home of Missouri’s record smallmouth, a seven-pound, two-ounce buster caught back in 1994, reports the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC). This lake consistently produces quality smallmouth bass.
Although Jeff Combs of Friend, Nebr., won the Elite championship with five largemouths caught on the upper (south) end of the Sac River arm of Stockton that weighed 19.91, there were several smallmouths brought to the scales.
Tournament anglers tend to target largemouths whenever they can because the bigmouths usually outweigh their smalljawed cousins. Matt Eisenbacher muttered a couple of times as contestants hauled their bags of five bass to the scales:
"Not good, I’m seeing brown in that bag.” The Stockton Lake smallmouths definitely show a strong brown color, as opposed to the green-and-black of largemouth and spotted bass. “They just don’t have as much weight—and that’s not good!” Eisenbacher explained.
"Smallmouths “are a small percentage of the black bass population in Stockton Lake,” said James Bolden, MDC’s fisheries management biologist responsible for the 24,900-acre impoundment. “They only make up six percent of the total black bass population.”Bolden based his assessment on electro-shocking samples taken mostly on the Big Sac arm of the lake.
The biologist added that the last creel census—where anglers are queried about their catches and preferences—was taken on the lake back in 2005. This survey showed that anglers ranked crappie number one, black bass two and walleye three. However, recent conversations with guides and anglers indicate that walleye now may be edging bass out of the number two spot.
“People don’t seem to target smallmouths when they come to Stockton,” Bolden said. “They catch them going for largemouths.”
Fishing guides J.R. Oldham of Anglers Midwest and Marty Thompson of Thompson Fishing Guide Service both agree that their customers tend to put more emphasis on walleye than bass these days.“We used to fish for bass a lot,” related Oldham. “The best way to catch a big smallmouth is on the five nights prior to a full moon, especially in September. I like to slow roll a short-armed spinnerbait along the sides of main lake points. And I like to put an Uncle Josh 101 pork frog on the spinnerbait.” Unfortunately, Hurricane Ike’s aftermath stymied any plans we had for chasing the smallmouths under September’s waxing moon.
Thompson said when he does get clients who want to bass fish, smallmouths make up about 10 percent of their catch. He added that this is especially true on the lower (northern) one-third of the lake. Soft plastics are Thompson’s favorite bass lures. We fished some deep rocky points with 10- to 12-inch plastic worms, catching a mix of largemouth and spotted bass. “The smallmouths will hit these big worms just as willingly as the bigmouths and Kentuckies,” he said. “People think you always have to use smaller lures for smallmouths, but that’s not true.”
Thompson also used big tubes and caught a broad-shouldered smallmouth on a Yum 4.25-inch grub, smoke colored with red flake. The fish fought deep and hard, making him think he had a much larger fish than the three pounds or so it weighed. That same grub also tempted a couple of smaller smallmouths along with several spots and largemouths.
“These smallmouths really fight hard,” Oldham observed. “I’ve had rods almost jerked out of customers hands when we’re fishing those spinnerbaits at night.”
Stockton Lake’s smallmouths are not particularly finicky about their choices of lures—although as with all bass, they want what they want when they want it. Different anglers, based on the time of year and conditions, will favor the venerable jig-and-chunk, tubes, spinnerbaits, curly-tailed grubs, shakey-head worms, plastic lizards, Senko-type worms, plastic worms, Carolina rigs and a variety of crankbaits or topwaters, especially the Zara Spook or a buzz bait.
Generally, Stockton’s smallmouth tend to hold and hit lures deeper than largemouths or spotted bass. However, as with any bass fishing, the brown-colored fish can make a liar out of anyone making general statements about them. Smallmouth bass have many nicknames, including “brownie,” “bronze back,” “smallie” and “smalljaws” among others.
Whatever you call them, they swim in the clear, cool, deep waters of Stockton Lake. When anglers “do catch them, they tend to be pretty good sized,” observed Biologist Bolden. “And they are feisty!”
Note: Guide Marty Thompson can be reached at (417) 424-BASS or www.fishstockton.com, while Guide J.R. Oldham can be reached at (417) 276-3683 or e-mail at anglersmidwest@windstream.net.
