A little rain can bring an attitude adjustment for anglers looking forward to catching walleye and white bass during their spawning runs.
Mike McBride at the Lake Sequoyah bait shop was acting hang dog last week when talk turned to the walleye spawning run up the White River.
"What spawning run?" he asked. "If we don't get some rain, there isn't going to be one." Walleye usually start spawning in late February.
The White River was just a trickle when we chatted. With the low flow and the low lake level, McBride figured the walleye would only run a few miles upstream from the U.S. 412 bridge.
He was loving the new flow of water in the White River after rain fell all day and into the night on Valentine's Day. McBride had a whole new outlook.
"Let's keep our fingers crossed because there's enough water right now that the walleye might make a run up the river," he said. McBride is hoping they'll come up as far as Lake Sequoyah dam to spawn. The area below the dam is a hot spot for anglers fishing from shore for walleye.
"Last year at this time I was catching my limit," the fisherman said. The daily limit is four walleye at Beaver Lake and its tributaries. Walleye must be 18 inches or longer to keep.
He's been fishing the White River and Lake Sequoyah most of his life and is good at predicting how far walleye, and white bass, too, will run up the river from year to year.
Before the rain, he was confident that walleye wouldn't come up any father than Walker's Bluff, about 1.5 miles downstream from the Arkansas 45 bridge at Goshen. The water was so shallow at Walker's Bluff before the rain, McBride noted, that fish would have to grow feet and walk to get over the shoals.
The rainy day was a hallelujah event for anglers who like to catch white bass. That spawning run normally starts in March and peaks during April.
The Arkansas 45 bridge access at Goshen is a white bass fishing hot spot during the spawn. Jon Stein, fisheries biologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said there's no way white bass would come up as far as Arkansas 45 with so little flow and Beaver Lake so low.
"If we get a two or three foot rise in the river that might get them up there," he said.
We got that rise last week. So it's anyone's guess now how much of a white bass run there will be. It's a little early for the run to start, but that never stops fishermen from trying for them in February. Spawning time means spring is near and anglers get excited about fishing.
If the river goes back to a trickle and there's no spawning run, white bass spawn all over Beaver Lake, Stein said. In that scenario, white bass may spawn in the backs of the major creek arms at Beaver Lake, such as Joe's Creek, Esculapia Hollow, Ford's Creek and the Big Clifty arm.
Stein was a fisheries biologist in Kansas before coming to Arkansas. In those Kansas lakes where there was no big inflow, white bass spawned everywhere on the lake, he said.
If the lake remains low and the rivers aren't flowing, Stein advises anglers to try for walleye and white bass farther downstream than they normally fish.
Now's the time to get ready. McBride's favorite walleye lures are countdown Rapalas in chartreuse or fire tiger colors. He also likes hair jigs with a pink head and chartreuse tail. Nightcralwers and minnows are good live baits.
"The best live bait you can use are creek chub minnows that you trap out of the creeks yourself," he said.
For white bass, any lure that resembles a minnow will work, such as white jigs, small crank baits and spoons. Minnows and small crawdads are good live baits.
McBride and Stein are both ready for white bass and walleye to run up the rivers, if they do.
"It'll be interesting to see what happens," Stein said.
Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip
Sports on 02/21/2017