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Overall rating

Black Crappie at Stockton Lake — 2026-10-05

Good · 78/100

Best window: 8 PM (Excellent · 87/100)

Season
Summer
Moon
26% illuminated, waningWaning Crescent
Est. surface temp
79.3°F
Pressure
30.22 inHgFalling

Est. water temp

79.3°F

v1 estimate from air temperature — not a sensor reading

Above Black Crappie's 72-77°F range

Air vs. last week

1°F cooler

77°F now vs 78°F this time last week

Measured air temperature at the nearest weather station — not water

Sun & moon

Sunrise
7:13 AM
Sunset
6:51 PM
Moonrise
1:39 AM
Moonset
4:17 PM
Sky, wind & pressureat best window · 8 PM
Cloud cover
1%
Precip chance
0%
Wind
2 mph NE
Pressure
30.22 inHg Falling

Species context

Why this score

Good (78/100) for Black Crappie: water is estimated at 79.3°F, above Black Crappie's 72-77°F optimal range. Best window: Night — boosts feeding activity by about 20%. That hour also overlaps a major solunar period. 30.22 inHg and falling pressure modeled about 4% below this fish's baseline. Calm (0-5 mph) wind modeled about 15% below this fish's baseline.

What's driving the 8 PM score

Water temperature (79.3°F estimated) is doing the most for this score. The score gives up the most on water temperature — 79.3°F estimated, about 6.9 points below its best.

  • Water temperature · helping
  • Light window · helping
  • Solunar period · helping
  • Barometric pressure · helping
  • Wind · neutral
Show the numbers behind this
  1. Water temperature: 79.3°F estimated

    38.1 of 45 pts

    Optimal range 72-77°F

    Well supportedWater temperature governs a cold-blooded fish's metabolism, so it is the largest term in the model (Christie & Regier 1988). The figure is a thermal-lag estimate built from forecast air temperature and the time of year — not a sensor reading, and not this lake's actual measured water.

  2. Light window: Night

    27.7 of 30 pts

    Boosts feeding activity by about 20%

    Well supportedLow-light feeding windows are the strongest timing signal inside a single day. How much each window is worth is this species' own cited response, sourced in its model file, not a generic curve.

  3. Solunar period: Major period

    5 of 5 pts

    Not supported by testingPeer-reviewed testing of North American freshwater fisheries found no significant relationship between solunar values, lunar phase or lunar illumination and catch rates (SN Applied Sciences, 2023) — air temperature predicted catch better than any solunar table tested. It is shown because anglers expect it, and it is shown separately so you can discount it. The owner reviewed this evidence and demoted its weight accordingly.

  4. Barometric pressure: Falling

    9.1 of 10 pts

    Modeled about 4% below this fish's baseline

    ContestedThe barometric effect is real to most anglers but small and contested in the literature — several of the species studies cited in this model report null results — so it carries one of the smallest weights here.

  5. Wind: Calm (0-5 mph)

    7.1 of 10 pts

    Modeled about 15% below this fish's baseline

    Moderately supportedWind stacks forage on windward structure, but both the size and the direction of the effect depend on the species and the water, so it carries a modest weight.

Then the whole score is scaled

Season: Summer — ×1.00 (100% of the ungated score)

How catchable Black Crappie are at this point in the year. This scales the whole score rather than competing with the factors above — a fish that is dormant this time of year cannot score well no matter how good the hour looks.

Weather front: No clear front — ×1.00 (100% of the ungated score)

A multi-hour frontal pattern read from the day's forecast trajectory. No front is classified today, so this changes nothing and the single-reading pressure factor above does its normal job.

Those five factors add up to 86.9 of 100 points, and the two multipliers above take that to 87. The weights are tuning constants — solunar's was demoted after peer-reviewed testing found no predictive effect (#456), and the rest remain under owner review — shown here rather than hidden so you can weigh them against your own judgement.

What this score does not know

  • Water clarity. We have no source for it and do not estimate it.
  • Measured water temperature. The figure in the breakdown is a model over forecast air temperature, not a reading from a buoy or a probe.
  • Baitfish and forage activity.
  • How much fishing pressure this water has had.
  • Where the fish actually are. Depth bands are the species' published seasonal ranges, not an observation of this lake.
  • What anyone actually caught. No catch reports feed this score.

Conditions read from the National Weather Service as of Oct 5, 2026 at 1:43 PM CDT. Solunar periods and sun/moon times are computed, not fetched.

When best caught

It's currently summer. Black Crappie typically hold 10-20 ft deep this time of year — at an estimated 79.3°F, this looks like a slower time of year to target them, since water temp is outside their optimal range.

Current depth

10-20 ft

This is the seasonal depth band from the species model — relative to this species' typical behavior, not this lake's actual structure. True depth relative to this lake's bottom contours needs lake bathymetry (tracked in issue #175).

Today's solunar periods

  • Minor: 1:09 AM–2:09 AM
  • Major: 8:04 AM–10:04 AM
  • Minor: 3:47 PM–4:47 PM
  • Major: 8:30 PM–10:30 PM

Best times

When do black crappie feed during the day?

Black Crappie feed most actively at Dawn and Dusk, when activity runs about 16% above the daily average across all four light windows.

  • Dawn1.30x

    Boosts feeding activity by about 30%.

  • Daytime0.70x

    Suppresses feeding activity by about 30%.

  • Dusk1.30x

    Boosts feeding activity by about 30%.

  • Night1.20x

    Boosts feeding activity by about 20%.

Hour by hour

Hourly bite forecast

HourBite scoreRatingLightWind
12 PM
72
GoodDay2 mph E
1 PM
72
GoodDay2 mph E
2 PM
72
GoodDay2 mph E
3 PM
73
GoodDay2 mph NE
4 PM
73
GoodDay2 mph NE
5 PM
72
GoodDay2 mph NE
6 PM
72
GoodDay1 mph NE
7 PM
86
ExcellentDusk2 mph NE
8 PM
87
ExcellentNight2 mph NE
9 PM
87
ExcellentNight2 mph E
10 PM
87
ExcellentNight2 mph E
11 PM
83
ExcellentNight2 mph SE

Location

Stockton Lake · 37.5475, -93.6169

Map data © OpenFreeMap, OpenMapTiles, OpenStreetMap contributors