Paydirt!

Walleyes, bass and more serve up stellar day

Early spring on a mountain stream is a bath of blue from the river and sky, redbud purple, green from pines and early rising hardwoods, and the gray of a forest still in winter slumber.
Early spring on a mountain stream is a bath of blue from the river and sky, redbud purple, green from pines and early rising hardwoods, and the gray of a forest still in winter slumber.

Rusty Pruitt and I needed a day like this.

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Rusty Pruitt and the author were surprised, but thrilled, to luck into a mess of 19-inch walleyes Tuesday on a mountain river.

Since February, Pruitt and I have been on a fruitless quest to catch stripers and walleyes that have migrated into skinny waters to spawn. We've caught largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass. We've caught white bass, bream and trout. We've even caught chain pickerel. We've caught everything but walleye or striper.

Pruitt, however, was especially fond of one outing on the upper Ouachita River at a place called Striper Corner, where in late February he enjoyed a stellar evening of bass fishing.

"I sure would like to see 'Striper Corner' again," Pruitt said in a text.

We didn't expect much when we launched my little river runner Tuesday. The calendar is right, but spring is about a month ahead of schedule this year. When the dogwoods and redbuds bloom is about the time white bass take over the upper sections of the Ouachita, and that signals the end of the walleye and striper run.

The dogwoods are still asleep in Montgomery County, but the redbuds are positively royal.

Ordinarily that would discourage us, but we badly wanted to fish, and Tuesday was an outstanding fishing day. We felt it, and while we had largely given up on our preferred prey for the year, we were eager to embrace whatever the river gave us.

My "river runner" is a 10-foot aluminum MichiCraft square-stern canoe. It is cramped for two anglers and all their gear, but it is extremely stable, and it can go places that no other boat can go right now.

For power I use a four-stroke Honda 2-horsepower outboard. Light and portable, it is ideal for tiny boats and shallow water. At the lowest throttle setting, it runs all day on 0.3-gallon of gas, and it pushes a canoe loaded with two anglers and all their gear at a perfect trolling speed, even in swift water.

Scott Hunter of Little Rock taught me to fish for walleyes in the upper Ouachita. He insists on long, light- or ultralight-action rods and 6-pound green line and rainbow trout-colored Long A Bombers.

Attrition has taken most of my rainbow trout Bombers, and I am torn on whether to replenish them. They excel for trolling in high, swift water, but they strike me as being too big and too aggressive in the low, gentle flow of the Ouachita right now. After one pull through the Powerline Hole with a jointed Long A, I switched to a 3½-inch Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn STX jerkbait in Secret Night color. Its subtle translucence is more appropriate for less dynamic conditions.

After two pulls through the Powerline Hole, we ascended the rapids to the long hole that ends at Striper Corner. Pruitt used a small Rapala minnow in rainbow trout color. He got on the board quickly with a couple of Kentucky bass, but we saw something that encouraged us immensely.

About 200 yards upstream, on the downstream side of Striper Corner, we saw a splash that looked like a detonating depth charge.

"Looks like at least one striper is still here," I said.

When we got to that spot, the striper broached next to the boat in a slow, arcing roll, like a porpoise. We trolled through the area three times, but we did not see that fish again.

"This ain't his first rodeo," I said. "The boat probably spooked him. Let's fish from the bank for a while and see if he comes back up."

Smallmouth bass were rife in the shoals, and Pruitt caught them by casting across to the bank, letting the current straighten his line and then retrieving steadily against the current.

"They're mauling it," Pruitt yelled giddily. "There is no indecision at all!"

When the shoal bite ebbed, Pruitt and I resumed trolling. To avoid wasting time, we trolled downstream as well as upstream, and it was productive. Kentucky bass continued hitting our baits, and Pruitt got a violent strike from what was poised to be the fish of the day, a 3-pound largemouth bass. It was fat, healthy and beautiful, and it tested Pruitt's Cherrywood spinning rod to its limit.

We would have been satisfied if that were the high point, but the best was yet to come.

On the next pull upstream, I got a vicious strike about 100 yards downstream from Striper Corner. It hit so hard and was so unyielding that I was certain I'd hooked a big smallmouth. I was astonished to see that it was actually a 19-inch walleye. Four smallmouths swarmed it trying to steal the stickbait from its mouth, so Pruitt slapped his Rapala in the water and pulled it in figure 8s to try to catch one of the antagonists.

On the next pull, Pruitt caught an identical walleye that was 19½ inches long.

"When those walleyes hit, they hammer down to the bottom," Pruitt said.

"That's not what I'm accustomed to at all," I said. "When they hit those big stickbaits, it's a tap-tap-tap deal, like they're trying to get their mouth around it. They're knocking the hell out of these little lures."

Pruitt hooked another walleye on the next pull, but misfortune struck. Pruitt lowered his rod and caught his line in the treble hooks of my big jointed Long A that lay parallel with the gunnel. While we struggled to untangle that mess, the walleye broke the line. We didn't get another bite.

"I think that 'cluster' jacked up this hole somehow," I said. "I am so sorry, man. I think that had the chance to be epic."

"What are you talking about?" Pruitt asked. "It already was epic.

"That walleye probably got under a rock and broke the line. He's probably still there, with a lure in his lip, cussing and moaning. All the other fish got tired of listening to him and split."

We ascended the next rapid to another pool that has always produced a few walleyes and stripers. Last time I fished there was with Chris Larson of Little Rock. I lightly hooked a double-digit striper and caught a nice smallmouth, but not much happened there Tuesday. A big white bass hit a tube jig at the boat so hard that it broke my line. Pruitt caught a white bass, as well, and we caught some Kentuckies and smallmouths at the shoal below Saltpeter Rock.

The fish stopped biting by about 6 p.m., dimming the lights on the best fishing day so far in this young year.

Sports on 03/26/2017

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