Question for those in far lower SE MO

[Bluesraider]

Anyone in the far lower part of SEMO ever fish the floodway ditches for Crappie with any success? Area looks like it should hold some fish but I never hear of anyone fishing it for anything other than cats. Mainly talking about the area of ditches from Kennett on down south to the state line. Just curious if anyone ever tried it?

[Speck]

Not sure about ditches around Kennett but you can catch em pretty consistently in the Diversion Channel south of Cape all the way to the Hwy 25 bridge when the water is right.

[avid]

Never heard of anyone fishing them. My opinion water level fluctuates to much for any consistency. They did have good luck in Jerry Paul Combs this season. I heard several stories of limits taken.

[Bluesraider]

Never heard of anyone fishing them. My opinion water level fluctuates to much for any consistency. They did have good luck in Jerry Paul Combs this season. I heard several stories of limits taken.

I fish JP quite often (its about 4 miles from my house)....actually went out yesterday for just a little while and picked up 2 crappie and 2 cats. Just not much size to the fish there and if it continues to get fished like it did this past spring there won't be many left. Unfortunately I know of two man boats that would go catch a limit (60 fish total, no length limit) and then they would go back again in the other guys boat and do the same thing in one days time. Lake is way too small (about 150 acres) to withstand that kind of pressure all the time. Its very slow out there right now so basically no one other than bass fisherman out there in boats. Where you located in the Bootheel Avid?

[avid]

New Madrid. I worked for MODOT on the Hwy 412 lane addition in 1999 when the clay liner was added. MDC drove tractors and pans from Jefferson City for the work and the super on job gave me a hand drawn sketch of the areas where structure was left. Here's a link I found when trying to google the date.....Features Vol 47 No 1 - The Story Of A Leaky Lake

[Bluesraider]

New Madrid. I worked for MODOT on the Hwy 412 lane addition in 1999 when the clay liner was added. MDC drove tractors and pans from Jefferson City for the work and the super on job gave me a hand drawn sketch of the areas where structure was left. Here's a link I found when trying to google the date.....Features Vol 47 No 1 - The Story Of A Leaky Lake

Wow...thanks for that link. I moved to Kennett right around the time it was going through all the trouble. I've never read anything that detailed about the project.

[ALLSTAR 1]

I fish JP quite often (its about 4 miles from my house)....actually went out yesterday for just a little while and picked up 2 crappie and 2 cats. Just not much size to the fish there and if it continues to get fished like it did this past spring there won't be many left. Unfortunately I know of two man boats that would go catch a limit (60 fish total, no length limit) and then they would go back again in the other guys boat and do the same thing in one days time. Lake is way too small (about 150 acres) to withstand that kind of pressure all the time. Its very slow out there right now so basically no one other than bass fisherman out there in boats. Where you located in the Bootheel Avid?

you should check out the thread "to catch a thief ... etc"