Thread: When was the last time...

...you caught any decent crappie at the Montrose hot-water discharge? I don't think I've seen a crappie caught there in the last 20 years, but I don't get to fish there much, anymore.

Originally Posted by wbook01

...you caught any decent crappie at the Montrose hot-water discharge? I don't think I've seen a crappie caught there in the last 20 years, but I don't get to fish there much, anymore.

Apparently nobody else does either.

It has been a long long time since it was in its prime. It has silted in pretty bad over the years. Th eonly deep water left is around the discharge. But below the dam on the creek is a different story. It can load up in the springtime with some monster slabs. Do you live close by Montrose? I lived in Appleton City for a few years. Welcome to the site.

I go down there and catch channel cats. I have tried crappie fishing there and just end up catching smaller cats.

I grew up near Kansas City and got to fish Montrose shortly after the plant went online. Crappie fishing was pretty amazing there in the winter, from the 1960s through about 1978 or '79. On a cold December day when the plant was running water, it would look like Bennett Spring on opening day down there, with people standing shoulder to shoulder along the canal.

I've canoed Deepwater Creek up to Montrose Dam in the spring. That's an interesting spot to fish.

don't know if its true or not but my grandpa said winter crappie fishing there used to be great decades ago, but they introduced wipers and now its not good anymore. sez no more shad... just what I heard...

Originally Posted by camo_boat

don't know if its true or not but my grandpa said winter crappie fishing there used to be great decades ago, but they introduced wipers and now its not good anymore. sez no more shad... just what I heard...

They introduced wipers in 1980, I think. The crappie population was already on its last legs. The lake was stuffed with oversized shad that crappie couldn't eat. So the MDC stocked hybrids in an attempt to control the big shad (which were also playing havoc inside the power plant).

Crappie never did come back. Most of the old spawning grounds for crappie are silted over. There's still a healthy shad population in the lake.

with stripers and wipers and it almost killed the crappie fishing, it was coming back pretty good when I retired from there in 07 but sure had a lot of fish frys from them big old stripes,,,, easy to catch at the intake.....

Where is Montrose ?

is about 15 miles west of clinton, mo..... power plant lake.......just off 18 hwy.....