Smithville Lake Guide Service

4 hour guide trip on Smithville Lake for two people $200.   $25 per hour beyond 4 hours. 

(Other lakes available with a gas fee added- Mazingo and Stockton Lake.)

The crappie spawn has started and fishing is great.  The white bass should be back and starting to bite soon.

Bait and appropriate lures and gas provided.   If you wish to take fresh fish home to eat I will clean them for you faster than you have ever seen, assuming we catch some keepers.

2012 FISHING LOG

updated 8-2

April 3, 2012:  Fished in the morning with Clayton and caught several nice fish one the main lake in just a few feet of water and then ran up in the Roberts and Linn creek areas of the lake an caught more fish most in 6 ft. or less of water.  Most were males and all were good size.  

April 7:  Fished main lake area, caught a few in the shallower areas but had to move to deep (20' -24') brush piles.   Ended up with abt 25 nice keepers.  Minnows or jigs caught fish equally.

April 8:  9:00 a.m. Headed straight to the deep brush piles and started catching nice fish.   We caught fish on both minnows and jigs.   Left brush and went to shallower areas in coves and caught nothing.  Went back to deep brush and started catching fish.  Ended up with abt 40 keepers.  

April 15:  Fished in three fingers area up the Little Platte river.   Water 61 to 63 degrees.  Fished the evening and caught a limit of fish but had to move around a lot.   A few fish here and a few there.  Not many in any one place.

April 17:  Fished some of the new brush piles and caught keeper fish out of all of the ones I fished.  20' deep piles fishing 10' to 12' deep.   

April 19th:  Thursday evening bass tournament.   3 fish @ 7 lbs 14 oz won a 2.5 hour tourn.   Several of the guys commented on catching lots of crappie on crank baits and spinner baits.  

April 20:   Cold night with 31 degree low.   Caught crappie out of the 20' deep brush again.   Tried for some bass with little success.  Minnows seemed to work better this morning. 

April 24:  Sunny and 75 degrees light wind.   Guide trip this morning and we stayed on the main lake most of the day.   Made a run to the meca area about noon and caught a few fish but not much.   Fished little nooks and ditch edges in about 8' of water.   Brush on a ditch edge close to a spawning flats was loaded with fish.   About half male and female.   You could keep a limit of 10+ inch fish easy.   and we did.  We caught several limits if you want to count the 9" to 10" fish.   Great day thanks to Lonnie and Norm.

April 29:   55 degrees rainy, windy and cold.  Guided in the morning and caught some ok fish before the rain really set in.  They were in about 8' of water and biting on minnows better than jigs.  Hid under the W-bridge for awhile until the rain stopped and headed back out.  Couldn't get a bite in the areas where we had just caught fish.  We moved to some 20' deep brush piles and started catching fish.   Went back out with my grandson about 5 pm and the fish were back in the shallow brush.   Some of the females I cleaned had already spawned.  

May 1st:  Fished main lake structure in 8' give or take feet of water and caught lots of nice fish.  Headed up the lake to the three fingers area past Mecca and caught some nice females most of which had already spawned out.   

May 4th:  Took my wife (Natalie) fishing today and caught lots of fish easily.  Was really windy in the morning so put the Minn Kota Tallon down and just fished.  What a great tool.   Natalie caught all of her fish on minnows and I caught all of mine on jigs.  Two limits and threw back lots of 9" and 10" fish. 

May 8th:  Had guide and fished the main lake all morning.  Catching the fish in 8' more or less of water.  Find a small piece of brush in 6' to 10' of water and there will be a few fish around it.  Caught more males than females and about half of the females had already spawned.  

May 10:  Fished the same water as Wed. and was able to catch limits of fish again.   Fish seem to be more scattered and fewer in a spot.  The early bite was very slow and got better as the day went on.

May 11th:  Stayed on the main lake and caught lots of nice fish early and fishing got tougher as the day went on.   Was able to catch limits of nice fish.   Threw lots of 9 1/2" fish back early because we were catching so many nice ones.   Had to work for the last few to fill the limit.   

May 15th:   Went north of the W bridge for the first time in a while.  Caught 1 walleye and some white bass but no keeper crappie.  Went back to the main lake and caught a limit of fish.  We caught some out of the 20' deep brush piles and some out of the 8' brush. 

July 30:  Water 89 degrees:   Had a crappie guide trip this evening and I was surprised to find that the crappie we caught were not already cooked.  Fished brush piles near the dam and caught lots of fish.  Seemed that we only caught 3 or 4 nice 10 in. + per pile, so keep moving.   The minnows seemed to catch the larger fish which were approx. 10' deep.   Saw no white bass coming up at dark.   

July 31:   Early am guide for crappie.  Started doing the same thing I did the night before and immediately caught fish.   Tried some shallower piles (10' to 15') of water and seemed to catch more larger fish than on the deeper piles.  White and chart. or blue and white jigs or minnows.   The larger fish were on the minnows again, but we did catch some nice fish on jigs later in the trip.

August 10th:  Did an all day trip for crappie and we caught our two limits.   Was a bit of a challenge since it was blowing 20+ mph wind.   Had to move into some of the coves out of the wind to be able to fish.   We caught fish on the 20' deep piles till the wind blew us off so we moved back into some of the coves and caught the rest of our fish out of 10' deep brush piles. 

October 16th:  Took Natalie out and we caught 11 nice keepers.   Most of the fish we caught were keepers and really nice size.   One 12" and another 11 1/2" for our big fish.  Natalie caught both of those on a minnow.     

May 8th 2011:  Mothers Day trip.   I took Mom and Butch fishing Sunday afternoon.  We caught our limits in about three hours.   We fished in the Little Platte river area of the lake to get out of the wind.  All of the fish we caught were in 4' of water or less.  Wore Butch out pulling in big fish and he had to put his oxygen on.

email :  garyb52@att.net    phone:816-532-4659

Stockton Lake Guide Service

Contact Bob Bennett at:    fishstocktonlake.com