Unlocking the bass fishing mysteries at Lake Barnett is no longer a collaborative effort.
It has become a full-blown community effort.
This project started several weeks ago when I visited Lake Barnett in southeast White County for the first time with my son Matthew and daughter Amy. Despite great expectations, I caught just one bass.
Regrettably, that fish is now disputed. It broke off at the boat. We all saw it, but now the youngsters have recanted and claim there was no fish.
This is a risky position to take weeks later when you're on a different lake far, far from home. A lake that has alligators, no less.
We talked to another angler that day who said he caught some decent bass with Senkos near flooded bankside vegetation on a main-lake point within sight of the dam.
A week or so later I fished Lake Barnett with Mark Bailey of Beebe. That was an even tougher day than the first. I caught one little bass on an obscure soft-plastic lure called an Eiland Fish Tail. I mistakenly called it a Fish Head in the article, but give me a break. This year is the first time I've seen those lures since Mr. Eiland gave them to me in 1997.
Last Wednesday I talked with Ben Batten, the new assistant chief of fisheries for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. He confirmed that Lake Barnett is an excellent bass fishery that has high potential for producing big bass.
The week before, one of Bailey's acquaintances relayed a superb outing on Lake Barnett where he said he caught 10 fish that weighed about 50 pounds cumulatively using swimbaits.
My buddy Mike Romine of Mabelvale has a co-worker who frequently fishes Lake Barnett. He didn't give his name, either, because he doesn't want to make local anglers angry. That's the way these things work. People are eager to contribute as long as they are anonymous.
Romine's contact said downsizing your baits is the key to catching bass at Lake Barnett in the summertime. Crappie jigs work well, but you'll also catch other stuff.
"One-sixteenth ounce," he said. "Chartreuse head, red-and-white body. A friend caught a boatload of bass, bream and warmouth Saturday."
Keep those tips coming, anonymous army. We always welcome suggestions.
GREERS FERRY WOES
Bass anglers are complaining about the pathetic fishing at Greers Ferry Lake and the havoc that hybrid stripers are wreaking on the fishery at large.
Ben Batten, the new assistant chief of fisheries management for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, acknowledged that bass fishing has been poor at Greers Ferry for a good while. Lake levels have been low during the spawning season for years, he said, so fry and and fingerlings have had no refuge cover to protect them from predators.
A lot of predators compete for a limited amount of forage in the lake. Hybrids, white bass, black bass, crappie and bream have mown down the baitfish population. With nothing else to eat, hybrids prey especially hard on game fish fry and fingerlings.
When game fish populations get low and unhealthy, stocking seems a convenient solution. The truth is that in a good reproduction year, bass produce more fingerlings in one cove than a hatchery or nursery pond. A couple of good year classes can turn a dead sea into a premier bass fishery, as happened at Bull Shoals and Beaver lakes a few years ago.
This year could spark an upsurge at Greers Ferry, but bass anglers will remain unhappy with the AGFC's emphasis on Greers Ferry's hybrid fishery.
A similar conflict occurred about 10 years ago at Lake Ouachita, when bass anglers demanded a change in management priorities. It wasn't easy, but a coalition of anglers got together with AGFC fisheries personnel and hammered out a compromise that modified striped bass management and put a greater emphasis on black bass.
Both sides were distrustful of each other until they learned they shared similar interests and goals. They all wanted great bass fishing, and both sides have worked productively together since.
It will take that kind of relationship between anglers and the AGFC to make lasting progress at Greers Ferry, too.
The latest generation of fisheries managers are trained to be adaptive to the people side of resource management. They relate to partnerships with user groups, and collaborative management is the way of the future.
Sports on 06/25/2015