April prime for Beaver Lake white bass, walleye

A parade of fins is on the march during spring. An eager audience awaits relaxing in lawn chairs on shore or seated in boats.

Anglers can't see the conga lines of walleye and white bass migrating from Beaver Lake up the White and War Eagle rivers. They know it's show time when fish bite lures like it's their last meal.

Walleye lead the parade, which typically starts in mid-March. They're the first to swim upriver to spawn, giving birth to the fish of tomorrow. Schools of white bass follow during April, with females laying millions of eggs on the gravel shoals of the War Eagle and White rivers.

Now is the time to be out there, said Kevin Hopkins, area fisheries biologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

"The peak of the walleye spawn might be over, but there's still fish in the rivers," he said.

Likewise, white bass are spawning in the tributaries.

Cold fronts that have been numerous for a couple of weeks can affect the catching. When temperatures plummet, white bass may retreat downstream back to the main lake. They'll swim upstream again when the weather settles and the water begins to warm.

Anglers awaited the parade of fish on a warm Friday, March 23 at the Arkansas 45 access over the White River at Goshen. The area is known as Twin Bridges for the bridge over the White River and a nearby span over Richland Creek.

Twin Bridges is fishing central in early spring. Anglers launch boats at the ramp under the Arkansas 45 bridge or fish from shore. The Friday crowd was there when Alan Bland of Rogers and a fishing friend launched a canoe on a quest for walleye.

The pair welcomed a passel of small male white bass into their boat. That was a clue that the larger female white bass hadn't come upriver yet.

Word from the fishing grapevine was that the walleye bite was good. The highlight of the morning was a 20-inch walleye Bland proudly displayed for a photo. A chartreuse Flicker Shad crank bait fooled the walleye.

That fish would make anybody's morning, but it hasn't always been that way. Walleye were a rare catch 10 years ago. The fish were native to the White River before Beaver Lake was built in 1965. They mostly vanished when the reservoir filled.

The Game and Fish Commission began an effort to re-establish walleye in 2002. Walleye were raised at the Beaver Lake Nursery Pond for several years. Thousands of fingerling-sized walleye raised at the pond near Horseshoe Bend park were released into the lake over a span of six or seven years. Now they spawn naturally all over the reservoir and are well established at Beaver Lake.

The first big natural spawn of walleye was in 2008, Hopkins said. The catching improved year after year. A lot of those early walleye were caught incidentally by anglers fishing for black bass or other species.

Now, people target walleye specifically at Beaver Lake. Trolling with crank baits is a good way to catch them. Nightcrawlers are a favorite live bait.

Not every walleye in the reservoir moves into the White and War Eagle rivers during spring.

"There are populations of walleye that live in the main lake that are going to spawn there," Hopkins said.

Walleye that live, say, near Beaver Dam aren't going to swim 60 or more miles up the lake to find the two rivers.

By mid-April, the focus is more on white bass. These are so abundant in Beaver Lake that there is no daily limit or size limit. Anglers can keep all the white bass they care to clean.

Any lure that looks like a minnow is good to use. A one-eighth-ounce white jig is ideal. Crank baits or grubs in shades of pink, yellow, white or chartreuse are good to use.

Small live crawdads or minnows should work for white bass. White bass are easy to catch with a fly rod. They'll gobble up up micro jigs or Clouser minnows in bright colors.

Tomek Siwiec of Rogers chases white bass on the War Eagle River with his fly rod each April.

"I've only caught some small males so far. I think the best fishing is still two or three weeks away," he said.

Biologist Hopkins agrees that the peak of white bass fishing hasn't happened yet.

The War Eagle and White rivers are the hot spots at Beaver Lake. White bass fishing is also good on the Kings River at the Romp Hole access near Grandview, where the stream flows into Table Rock Lake.

April is the prime month, but good white bass fishing sometimes lasts into early May. Now is the time to cast a line during the walleye and white bass parade.

Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected]

Sports on 04/10/2018