Despite the wacky weather, the white bass run is unfolding right on time.
Of course, the status of the annual spawning run depends on where you are. It's farther advanced in south Arkansas, and it probably hasn't begun yet in north Arkansas.
In Central Arkansas, it is in its initial stages. In our reservoirs, that means white bass are congregated in the bottlenecks below the fall lines of the major tributaries. They will move upstream over the next few weeks, and you will be able to catch them from the banks, from canoes and by wade fishing, but right now they are bunched up in deep water that is accessible by boat.
I noticed it Friday while cruising up the Ouachita River with Chris Larson of Little Rock. As we neared the first shoal at the end of Lake Ouachita, dozens of white bass broke the surface. Only two boats were fishing for them. We made a few passes with trolled stickbaits to see if some stripers were in the vicinity. We didn't catch anything, but I made a mental note to return soon with a more specific objective.
That opportunity came Tuesday with a text message from Rusty Pruitt of Bryant, who asked whether I had any plans for the day. That was the prompt I needed. We organized a "lightning strike" white bass outing. We tried unsuccessfully to include our good luck charm, Bill Eldridge, but he is off the grid and incommunicado while setting up a crappie camp somewhere.
The weather was warm, overcast and windy, perfect for fishing in shallow water. I like choppy water when fishing for an aggressive, concentrated species like white bass because it seems to make them more willing to come to the surface.
First things first, of course. White bass are a lot of fun and easy to catch, but there are walleyes and stripers in these skinny waters right now. One big striper is a lot more fun to catch than a dozen white bass, and a walleye is a lot more tasty. It's all about priorities, so we threaded through the few boats fishing for white bass and took my War Eagle past the fall line.
That was not easy. With the 25-horsepower Yamaha in shallow-water drive position, we squeezed through impossibly thin water until we reached impassably thin water. I disengaged the gears as the skeg ground into gravel. Pruitt and I jumped out before the current ushered us downstream, and that's when we learned how heavy a War Eagle 542 is.
With me pulling and Pruitt pushing, we horsed the boat over the shoal, jumped in and put it in drive before the current swept us back down into the rocks.
"That obliterates any illusion I had about taking this boat all the way up to High Shoal," I said as we wiped the sweat off our brows. "I don't think one person could do what we just did."
We went through two more shoals and trolled the pools between, but we didn't get a bite, so we returned downsteam to fish at the fall line. That was a much quicker trip than it was going up, and a lot easier, too.
As soon as we cleared the shoal, I flipped a firetiger Long A Bomber into the tail of the rapid and Pruitt flipped a bream colored Excalibur stickbait. I engaged the motor and we trolled slightly faster than the current.
I immediately caught a decent size Kentucky bass, but Pruitt caught a succession of male white bass. They were bigger than typical, which made us eager to see how big the females were. We did not find out. Every white bass we caught was male.
We got most of our bites trolling fast downstream. The few bites we got trolling upstream were decidedly bigger fish, but we were unable to land them. Either way, it was important to bounce the lure along the bottom.
Next time, I will use small swimbaits, like a Bobby Garland minnow, on 1/8-ounce or lighter jigs. I might be inclined to jig spoons off the bottom while drifting, too.
All of these things will work at Lake Maumelle, too, which is famous for its white bass run. It should be turning on right about now.
Sports on 03/02/2017