Lake Wappapello

So fishermen may stretch the truth, but fisheries researchers never do. Fish biologists count and measure fish and tally and survey anglers. They then release their findings without the least bit of exaggeration, or even a wink...Their conclusion? Wappapello is a great fishing lake that’s getting better. The crappie have a predictable baby boom every year, and largemouth bass are growing bigger and bigger. About 75 percent of anglers who fish Wappapello target those abundant crappie. A nice day in the fall and winter, and almost any kind of day in the spring, will bring a flock of southeast Missouri and St. Louis anglers to the lake. In lake Wappapello, 10 to 12 feet on the edge of the channel is kind of the magic depth, As one local put it, “I’m usually easing along with my trolling motor trying to find some structure on the bottom that shows some fish around it that I assume and hope to prove are crappie.” He said using only one pole lets him work quietly and efficiently, and the 20-pound test line on his reel lets him straighten jig hooks that get hung up in stumps. When water begins warming up in the spring, starting about late February or early March, he follows the crappie up into the backs of coves and bays.
“Then, I fish with a floater and a jig,” he said. “It’s amazing that you can tie a jig under that floater no more than a foot deep and catch nice, big crappie.” He said that during the years he’s fished Lake Wappapello, about half of the lake’s original stumps have disappeared as water washed sand and dirt away from their roots. He and others are working hard to replace this valuable cover. “For the fish, a lack of cover is like living in a room with not enough furniture,” said Mark Boone, the Conservation Department biologist who manages the fishery at Lake Wappapello. “Stumps, brush piles and that sort of thing are like furniture for fish.”
He described how little fish hide in the furniture to avoid predators, and big fish surge from behind the furniture to surprise and capture passing prey. New Wood to create more fish furniture, the Conservation Department and the Corps of Engineers, along with members of local fishing clubs, began putting brush in the lake about five years ago.
“The first few years, we put in large, hardwood brush piles all around the lake,” Boone said. “We didn’t mark any of them, but then, in 2004, we started creating larger brush piles that consisted, on the average, of three loads of large hardwood trees. They’re all marked with yellow signs that say ‘Fish Attractor.’” “Anglers can fish up and down until they find fish,” Boone said. “They don’t need fancy boats with all kinds of electronics. All they have to do is find a sign, and they’ll find the brush.” Anglers are also creating fish habitat on their own. McKuin said the Lake Wappapello Corps of Engineers supports angler efforts to create more fish habitat. Their only requirement is that anglers place the structure where recreational boaters won’t be affected. *some content provided by missouri conservation dept.