Arkansas Sportsman

Bass won't play at Lake Barnett

Since streams and rivers are so high and swift, I'm fishing small lakes around the state this spring and summer.

One of these is Lake Barnett, which I visited Tuesday with my son Matthew and daughter Amy. Lake Barnett is a 245-acre impoundment of Des Arc Bayou in southeastern White County near Beebe.

Don't let that bayou thing fool you. Lake Barnett sits in a deep hollow that's ringed by tall bluffs and steep, hardwood-forested hills. Its appearance makes you feel like you're in an isolated cove of Greers Ferry Lake. There are a few homes near the shoreline, but for the most part the lakeside is unspoiled.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission owns Lake Barnett, which contains healthy populations of largemouth bass, sunfish, crappie and spotted bass. It also has channel catfish and warmouths. There is a 13- to 16-inch slot-length limit for largemouth bass, which means anglers must release all largemouth bass between 13-16 inches long.

Because of persistent, heavy rain, Lake Barnett is very high. Large amounts of shoreline vegetation are inundated, which leads one to believe largemouth bass might be in shallow shoreline cover.

Our objective Tuesday was to catch bass with soft-plastic frogs. They are all the rage now because they catch fish. Since they are relatively snag-proof, they're also a good choice for young people who are adroit at stream fishing but who are inexperienced casting at wood and weed cover from a boat.

We used Ribbit frogs. I used black with blue flake, and the kids used black/red flake. They are solid-body frogs with supple legs that paddle the water during the retrieve. This churns and throws water like a buzzbait but offers a bigger, wider profile than a buzzbait.

We also used Owner keeper-style hooks with a one-fourth-ounce weight attached to the hook shank. This provides casting weight as well as the necessary resistance to work the legs.

My ill-conceived choice of tackle negated the frog's effectiveness. A frog should be swimming the instant it touches the water. My reel had a 5.4:1 retrieve ratio, which is too slow to keep the frog on the surface.

After awhile I gave up on the surface retrieve and fished the frog like a jig. I actually got a bite working it in submerged cover, but I eventually gave up and switched to crankbaits.

The kids stayed with the frog a couple of hours longer than I did, but they didn't get any bites, either. That forced us off the bank to work crankbaits among the downed and standing timber in deeper water.

We used Model 6A Bombers. Mine was red crawdad color. Matthew used green crawdad, and Amy used brown crawdad. I got one bite from a bass that looked to be about 4 pounds. It hit my crankbait when it ricocheted off a stump. Unfortunately, my drag was set too tight and the fish broke my line while I struggled to loosen it.

From that point forward, we did a lot of casting in what evolved into a scouting trip. As small and narrow as it is, my War Eagle 1542 is ideal for Lake Barnett. A good electronic graph is really helpful to find channels and other topographical variances. If bass aren't in shoreline cover, they're probably on mid-lake structure taking advantage of current.

Near the dam we talked to a man who said he'd caught some nice bass on Yamamoto Senkos in shallow water. All of his fish were in the 15- to 17-inch range, he said, except for a big one that broke him off early.

There is a lot to like about little Lake Barnett. I intend to get to know it a lot better.

LAKE ERLING CORRECTION

In last Thursday's column, I omitted a zero from the cost of a survey to determine the boundaries of Lake Erling in Lafayette County. My column erroneously quoted the cost of the survey as $38,000. Mike Knoedl, director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said the cost was actually $380,000.

Sports on 05/28/2015

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