Bass add fun to a cold winter's day

After failing to catch walleyes in Lake Ouachita last Saturday, Rusty Pruitt of Bryant and I made a short trip Tuesday to the Ouachita River above the lake.

The river is narrow, shallow and rocky, with long pools separated by steep, tumbling shoals. The only place to launch a boat is steep, rutted and muddy, but a propeller-driven boat is confined to one pool unless the river level is about 5 feet. Even then, it's safe only for boats with jet-drive outboards.

Pruitt and I took my 12-foot MichiCraft square-stern canoe. Its broad beam makes it very stable, but if the water is too wild I can attach a dual pontoon kit that makes it virtually impossible to capsize.

Power comes from a 2-horsepower Honda four-stroke outboard. It starts reliably and runs all day on three-tenths of a gallon of gas. At slow speed in heavy current, it's the perfect trolling combination.

Cold and windy, with a looming threat of rain, it was a perfect day for walleye fishing. The question was whether walleyes were that far upriver.

We launched the canoe and walked it upstream through three sets of rapids to the Powerline Hole. The channel is very deep where it follows a bluff, and it is traditionally my most dependable walleye hole.

At the top of the Powerline Hole is a pinch point where the channel curves around a small boulder field before widening into another long pool that ends at a long, steep shoal. Below the shoal is a deep hole that's known as Striper Corner.

Above that is another short pool known as Connie's Climax, named for a person that Chris Larson rescued who wrecked his boat against a snag when the river was at flood stage.

Above Connie's Climax is another long, steep rapid that levels into another pool that ends at Saltpeter Rock. It's usually too shallow to navigate upstream from Saltpeter Rock unless the river is at flood stage. Then you can go all the way to River Bluff and beyond.

Pruitt and I trolled the Powerline Hole twice upstream and once downstream with no effect. I used a Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn STX, and Pruitt used a sinking Rapala minnow in rainbow trout color. Ordinarily you can't tell much from only three pulls through a hole, but we knew instinctively that walleyes were absent.

We continued trolling to Striper Corner. Pruitt caught two fat spotted bass with his Rapala before we stopped to fish the deep pool at Striper Corner. We usually catch a ton of bass there with jerkbaits, but that's always in March. It was lifeless on Tuesday.

Before long it started raining. I'll fish in the rain if fish are biting, but if they're not ...

"Let's get out of here," I said. "This is no fun at all."

It was a little more fun for Pruitt. He caught one more spotted bass on the way back to the ramp.

Sports on 02/18/2018

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