Bassin' brotherhood

Beautiful day beckons anglers to Ouachita

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BRYAN HENDRICKS
Rusty Pruitt of Bryant used a Zoom Tiny Lizard to catch this chunky spotted bass Thursday on a gorgeous day at Lake Ouachita.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BRYAN HENDRICKS Rusty Pruitt of Bryant used a Zoom Tiny Lizard to catch this chunky spotted bass Thursday on a gorgeous day at Lake Ouachita.

LAKE OUACHITA -- After days of rain and cold, a warm and sunny Thursday prompted a fishing trip to the prettiest lake in Arkansas.

The fishing bug always bites hard the week after the FLW bass tournament at Beaver Lake. Four days of watching anglers weigh in limits of big bass and listening to them talk about fishing makes me want some really bad.

Plus, all the texts and photos that friends and readers send this time of year heightens my desire. A group of guys from Russellville and Northwest Arkansas, including Brian Beach and Lonnie Lemmings, catch big smallmouth bass every April during their annual pilgrimage on the Buffalo River.

Matt Hedrick of Little Rock and his buddies have been catching big largemouths for two weeks at Lake Atkins with Spro frogs in the buckbrush. Hedrick said he's hooked at least one that topped 10 pounds, but he didn't land it.

When Thursday dawned bright and beautiful, I was not surprised when Rusty Pruitt of Bryant suggested a "lightning strike" trip to Lake Ouachita. For this he declined an invitation to play golf at one of the fine courses in central Arkansas. I aborted a turkey hunt at my place in Grant County. I'm about fed up with those birds, anyway. I haven't heard a gobble in more than a week.

Pruitt and I arrived at Crystal Recreation Area around noon. Bill Eldridge of Benton joined us soon after. My first stop was at the fish cleaning station at the top of the parking lot where an elderly couple was cleaning fish. If they had bass, I wanted to see what they were eating.

Instead, they had a limit of big walleyes. The couple caught them on crankbaits off main-lake points at dawn.

"They bite real early and real late," the man said. "Once the sun gets up, you can forget it."

Pruitt and I fished together in my War Eagle flatbottom, and Eldridge fished from his aluminum XPress. We split up for a time as Eldridge explored an area on the south side of the lake while Pruitt and I looked over the prospects on the north side.

We ended up on the south side across a wide bay from Eldridge where we found an island that we liked. A west wind blew hard against the island's west bank. If baitfish were near, the wind should push them against the bank where they would be easy pickings for game fish.

The L-shaped island was also attractive because it formed a shallow bay where the waves hit the land in different fashion. Waves slammed directly against the western shore, but they moved parallel down the shore of a north-facing point. The convergence of all those waves created a bathtub effect in the bay that was rough and choppy.

That kind of violence can dislodge food and attract bass, so that's where we started. I began with a Lucky E Strike RC STX stickbait, chrome/blue back. That's a great bait for clear water because it flashes like a strobe. It's irresistible when fish are hitting stickbaits, but Thursday was not one of those days.

Before long I switched to a Zoom Tiny Lizard in junebug color on a 1/4-ounce weight. That was a good decision. Casting to deep water about 25 yards from the bank, I got a strike almost immediately from a chunky spotted bass, and then another shortly after.

We moved to a small transitional area where a steep-sloping shale deposit striped the more horizontal deposits. The slope is gentler there, but I continued casting about 25 yards offshore. The fish were bigger there, too, and I suspect some were still spawning by the way they bit. They didn't inhale the bait. They grabbed it and ran with it, sometimes going 8-10 feet or more before I could set the hook. Most of the time I seemed to pull it out of their mouths.

Later, we joined Eldridge in a different area that has a lot of topographical features with a dazzling array of depth changes and cover. This is also one of the few places on the lake that still has elodea, which bass love.

Bass still didn't want the stickbait. I switched to a Fat Free Shad crankbait and got no bites, but Pruitt caught a couple of nice spotted bass on a Zoom Tiny Lizard.

Returning to Crystal, my outboard sounding sluggish as we sped up the cut from the main lake. As we rounded the last bend toward the marina, it died without so much as a cough. The fuel tank was bone dry. Far in the distance, Eldridge already had his boat on the trailer. Pruitt texted him our predicament, which Eldridge relayed to another angler who was about to trailer his boat. He came to tow us in as we inched along with the trolling motor.

I have a larger tank at the house. I'll need both of them, I guess, when I fish big lakes.

Sports on 05/03/2015

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