Regardless of the time of year, the
fish are always biting somewhere. Try your hand at catching
monster catfish in the broad bottomland rivers of the Delta,
or fly-fish for trout in the clear streams of the Ozarks.
Fish the coastal plain lakes for crappie and bream, or try
for white bass and hybrids at a reservoir in the Ouachita
Mountains. The opportunities are almost endless.
FEBRUARY
Old Town Lake Crappie
Old Town Lake, southwest of West Helena, warms up earlier
than do many other Arkansas lakes, and crappie usually move
into the shallows to prepare for spawning around the middle
of February. This oxbow, separated from the Mississippi
River by a levee, drains into Big Creek in the White River
drainage. Fishing conditions are not highly influenced by
any river, however, and water levels are generally quite
stable, a definite advantage for visiting crappie anglers.
The lake is at the town of Lakeview on state Highway 44 in
Phillips County.
As the water in Old Town Lake warms this month, anglers
start catching crappie around the dense stands of cypress
trees in shoreline shallows. It's not uncommon when working
jigs or minnows around good cover to take a 30-fish limit of
crappie that weighs 40 pounds or more. The lake is extremely
shallow, less than 6 feet throughout, but on February's warm
bluebird days, most crappie will be in 2 feet of water or
less.
MARCH
Beaver Lake Hybrid Stripers And White Bass
On this huge U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lake near Rogers
in northwest Arkansas, anglers can enjoy some hot action for
hybrid stripers and white bass this month. Both species of
temperate bass can be expected to be gorging on schools of
shad, and near dawn and dusk they run the baitfish to the
surface. Watch for surface disturbances as the shad are
herded around by these predators; then, move in quietly and
start casting to the schools.
Any shad-like lure will catch them, but it's hard to beat a
silver jigging spoon worked vertically beneath the boat.
Free line one to the bottom, and then rip it upward a few
feet at a time. Use a sturdy bait casting outfit: Hybrids
weighing up to 10 pounds and more are common, and one of
those can demolish poor-quality tackle in short order.
Whites weighing 2 pounds and up are abundant. Dress warmly;
the weather can turn frigid quickly this time of year.
MAY
Lake Ouachita Walleyes
Lake Ouachita, west of Hot Springs, is a top destination for
world-class walleye fishing this month. This 40,000-acre
Corps lake has always been a good walleye producer, but
local aficionados say it just keeps getting better. Eight-
to 12-pounders are common, especially around weed beds and
humps. Some longtime Ouachita anglers say that the walleye
explosion may have placed these good-eating fish above
largemouth bass on the list of most-caught sport fish.
JULY
Blue Mountain Lake Catfish
Although often overlooked by catfish aficionados, Blue
Mountain Lake provides some of the best fishing for channel
cats, blues and flatheads in the western half of Arkansas.
Covering 2,910 acres, this honey hole lies largely in
western Yell County near Waveland. The channel cats
superabundant here often weigh over 5 pounds. Those who know
the ins and outs of fishing for them have a good chance of
landing a blue or flathead weighing 30 pounds or more.
Bowfins are common in oxbow lakes along the Mississippi
River, including Horseshoe, Midway, Old Town, Whitehall and
Paradise. Good lures run the gamut from surface plugs to
bottom bumpers, but in August, it's hard to beat a plastic
worm fished around stickups, cypress trees and buck brush.
SEPTEMBER
Arkansas River Striped Bass
In terms of the number of fish it produces, the Arkansas
River is one of the best striper waters in Arkansas. There
are few days when a dedicated angler can't hook several nice
fish, but the abundance of 5- to 15-pound stripers provides
all the action most fishermen need.
September finds stripers chasing shad on the surface. The
fish may roam large areas as they follow bait, but some
action continues day after day in the same locales, usually
around dawn and dusk. Fishermen watch the water for feeding
fish and, when they're sighted, rush to get in a cast before
the stripers dive. Any top water plug or light-colored jig
popped across the surface will draw strikes when fish are in
a feeding frenzy. Stripers can be taken on any of the river
pools from Ft. Smith to the river's confluence with the
Mississippi, but the best striper pools, perhaps, are lakes
Dardanelle and Ozark in the western part of the state.
OCTOBER
Big Piney Creek Small mouths
In October, mountain streams are at their best for casual
float-fishing. There's hardly a better time to fish for
battling smallmouth bass, and Big Piney Creek is one of the
best places to go.
Two excellent smallmouth floats are the 10-mile section from
Forest Service Road 1004 at Limestone to state Highway 123,
and the eight miles from state Highway 123 to Treat (Forest
Road 1805). Good lures include jigging frogs, minnow- and
crayfish-imitation crank baits, and small plastic worms. Use
medium to heavy tackle. Some people expect that the bass
swimming this smallish stream will be small, too, and that
expectation can cost you trophy fish. Cast to rocks,
underwater ledges and submerged timber.
Pickerel, being fish-eaters, are drawn to lures mimicking
baitfish. A weedless silver spoon with a trailing pork rind
is an old standard, but spinners, chugger plugs, slim-minnow
lures, streamers and even plastic worms will elicit strikes.
Cast along Ouachita's numerous weed beds, reeling with a
steady, moderate-speed retrieve. Or, when using top waters,
cast to pockets in the weeds, let the lure sit until the
ripples have died away, and then twitch the lure again,
continuing to the boat with a twitch-and-stop retrieve.
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