PRAIRIE CREEK — Fred Beaman doesn’t rocket across Beaver Lake in a glittering bass boat when there are fish to catch. His speed is more of a mosey.
The fisherman’s pontoon boat scoots him along just fine. There’s plenty of room, more than in a conventional fishing boat. It’s easy on gas and tows nicely behind his white Suburban.
A trolling motor on the bow moves him quietly toward the lairs of crappie and black bass. Beaman haunts these fish hideouts nearly every morning from the carpeted deck of his pontoon boat.
“It’s comfortable and you’ve got a lot of room. When you want to load up the grandkids and the nieces and nephews it works out pretty good,” Beaman said.
It takes the fisherman about five minutes to get from his home in Prairie Creek to the Arkansas 12 bridge launch ramp. He’s fishing by 6 a.m. and goes almost every weekday morning when the weather is nice.
That adds up to about 200 fishing days a year for the retired machinist. “Sometimes I have bad dreams about having to go back to work,” Beaman said.
Sometimes his trips are more hunting than fishing, as they were when Beaman and I fished on July 16, a humid Friday morning.
Heat Is On
It was almost sunup and we hadn’t made a cast. Beaman fixed his gaze on a depth finder hunting for fish prowling below. The screen showed the occasional shape of a fish, but what kind?
“In the morning you’re liable to catch a walleye, two or three bass and some white bass. That’s a pretty good day,” Beaman said.
Tough fishing rides in on July’s fiery temperatures. We only wished we had that many fish. Some mornings no lure under the sun will bring a bite and this was one of those times. Beaman carries 15 rods in his pontoon boat, all rigged with different lures.
“And I’ve taken some out. It gets cluttered in here pretty quick,” he said.
Finally a fine spotted bass tried to knock the eyes off a topwater lure Beaman was working between the Arkansas 12 bridge and Bear Island, the bluff-faced atoll north of the bridge.
Beaman keeps plenty of fish to eat, but his freezer shelves are heavy with filets. He slid the bass back into the lake.
“You never know how you’re going to have to fish,” Beaman coached. “You might catch them the same way three mornings in a row, but then it will change.”
River First
Beaman moved to the area in 1959 and fished the White River before Beaver Lake was built in the 1960s.
“I remember when this was all fields,” Beaman recalled, sweeping an arm over the water near Beaver Shores.
“I’ve seen some weird stuff being out here all that time. I’ve seen an osprey steal a fish from an eagle. Sometimes it’ll be real quiet and all of a sudden a tree will fall.”
Beaman and his regular fishing buddy, Ford McIntosh of Rogers, started fishing at Beaver Lake out of a two-person water scamp.
“We’d carry two tackle boxes, a battery and a couple thermoses of coffee,” Beaman said.
They moved up to a roomier john boat, then Beaman got his pontoon. The quiet boat moved us at a modest pace from Beaver Shores to Deer Island, another island north of the bridge.
Relentless midsummer sun beat down, but there had to be fish along this rocky point we pummeled with lures.
Our second, and last, fi sh was a crazy catch.
A channel catfish bit a white grub I was working over the rocks. The fish dug for the bottom and I expected a walleye, not a catfi sh.
Around 9:30 a.m., Beaman headed for the ramp. That’s his normal quitting time in the summer. He fi shes until it gets hot, then heads for the AC.
It’ll be cool again at 6 a.m. when Beaman launches his pontoon boat to fish another day.