Question for Mofish

[olesilverside]

Back in 1980 when I went to work up at the Iatan Power Station up by Weston Mo. there were two little lakes up there, bean lake which I lived on and Sugar Lake, back then the MDC was raising Crappie on Sugar Lake, do they still raise them there? We could catch 300 to 500 in a few hours, all about 6 to 8" long...... I do remeber one little piece of 3/4" pipe sticking up in the middle of nowhere in about 3'fow and about every other day we could get one and just one 11" to 12" crappie off of it.... so I think this also answers the question of some metal in crappie beds, bed springs, old cars,model T's worked best......:D

[Jim C.]

They took all of the fish hatchery out of the sugar lake area several years ago maybe after the flood of 93 but they still have the camp grounds but i don't think MDC has any thing going on there. Jim C.

[olesilverside]

I know the locals always talked about the flood of 52 is what filled it up and made it so shallow........ left up there in 82 so don't know what happened up in that area, didn't really matter much to me once Truman opened.... found home and have never left....

[MOfishmgr]

The Lewis and Clark Fish Hatchery closed in the late 80's or early 90's. All it raised were bass, bluegill and channel cats for stocking new ponds. Bean and Sugar lakes are old Missouri River channels. These oxbow lakes are very shallow and are prone to fish kills. They can have good crappie fishing after a flood but usually are pretty poor fishing lakes. They are turbid and shallow and Bean Lake is almost covered in Lotus plants. These lakes will eventually completely fill in. They are places where Missuri River sediment will drop out during floods and slowly fill the lakes in. The same thing happens to blew holes. Blew holes are usually created behind levee breaks where the river scours out the bottom. Subsequent floods that don't break the levees will cause them to fill in. After the 1993 flood there was some excellent crappie fishing in the new blew holes. In my opinion, oxbow lakes are not worth fishing most years but blew holes can provide good fishing until they get too shallow.

[Dave P.]

A buddy of mine that lives on the lake said they raised Musky there also. He said the crappie fishing is still good at times but the lake is filling in with silt. The deepest water is only about 10 ft. but the majority is less than 3 ft.