Anglers generally enjoyed the 29th annual Arkansas Big Bass Bonanza, which is the only tournament that pays $50,000 for a single largemouth bass.
One guy at the awards ceremony Sunday in North Little Rock griped about the hourly awards being smaller than he anticipated. The hourly money is based on the number of registered entries, which were more than 200 fewer than 2017. Only the overall winner and the top four biggest bass from each pool earn guaranteed money, and the tournament rules explain the payouts clearly.
Tim Griffis of Lonoke was pleased to win an hourly check in the Dumas Pool. He said the fishing was tough on the first day of the tournament on Friday because virtually no current was moving through the McClellan-Kerr Navigation System.
Flow was decent Saturday, and it was excellent Sunday, when it ran about 30,000 cubic feet per second, Griffis said.
Nevertheless, the winning bass was caught for the third consecutive year on the first day, and for the fourth time in five years. That fish, caught by Billy Holeman Jr. of Camden, weighed 6.03 pounds. That's the smallest overall winner since 2001, when Jim Quillman of Plano, Texas, won with a 5.89-pound bass.
For Chris Tucker of Russellville, an ounce of largemouth bass is worth $12,500. Tucker caught a 6.01-pound largemouth to win the $10,000 grand prize in Pool 2. Two-tenths of a pound is 3.2 ounces, which was the difference between $10,000 and $50,000.
Tucker did not express a hint of disappointment Sunday. One lucky cast is the difference between $10,000 and $50,000, he said, and $10,000 is a nice payday.
Griffis said he's not surprised at the general lack of quality fish in the tournament. He said it's because Asian carp have obliterated the food chain in the lower stretches of the McClellan-Kerr Navigation System, its backwaters, the lower Arkansas River below Dam No. 2 and even in the Mississippi River.
Several years ago, Griffis sent me a video that he shot of a Corps of Engineers work boat operating below Dam No. 2. It looked like a fountain of carp jumping on and around the boat.
All of the bass Griffis and his partner caught during the Big Bass Bonanza had big heads and emaciated bodies, he said.
"We caught one that my partner said looked like it had been filleted and thrown back in the lake," Griffis said. "These big balls of shad rolled by like they often do, but even they didn't look very healthy."
Griffis, an ardent catfish angler, introduced me to the excellent catfishing below Dam No. 2. We shared that experience in a 2005 article titled, "Here, kitty kitty!"
Griffis said he doesn't fish those waters anymore because the shad and skipjack that once teemed in the Wilbur Mills Dam tailwaters are largely gone. Only carp teem there now, he said.
The only thing that's going to end the carp plague is the development of a consistent commercial market. If it ever becomes profitable to catch and sell Asian carp, they'll be gone within two years.
Aerial menaces make fishing in southeast Arkansas challenging, too. Buffalo gnats ran a couple of die-hard catfishermen off their favorite holes. When the gnats went away, in came the mosquitoes. When they thinned out, a plague of sweat bees took their place.
Farewell to a friend
Gary Hubble of Alexander, owner of NIFE Marine and a good friend to bass fishermen in central Arkansas, died last week of natural causes.
When I joined the staff of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2005, the first person I wrote about was J.O. Brooks. The second was Hubble, and we did a fun article about late winter bass fishing in the Little Rock Pool of the Arkansas River.
Years later, I was Hubble's partner in my first bass tournament. It was an Anvil Jaw Bass Club tournament at Lake Ouachita in February. It was awfully cold, but we had a blast.
It was almost as much fun as the day we fished for trout on the Little Red River with Hubble's daughter, Caryn Clifton.
Hubble was a guest two weeks ago on Ray Tucker's Arkansas Outdoors radio program on 103.7-FM, the Buzz. I talked to him again last Thursday, and on Friday he was gone.
I speak for many when I say I'm going to miss him a lot.
Sports on 07/05/2018