Arkansas Sportsman

Wind, smoke dim Hinkle stop

Monday was one of those regrettable times when reality does not live up to expectations.

Or worse, when memories don't live up to reality.

That's not really fair, either.

Lake Hinkle, a large watershed lake in western Scott County near Waldron, is one of my favorite places in Arkansas. It's also one of the most beautiful places in Arkansas, and it's as beautiful now as ever.

I haven't fished Lake Hinkle since 1997 when I lived on the other side of the mountain in Hartford. It was one of my favorite haunts, a small dot of cobalt colored water sheltered by a wall of cobalt tinted mountains that encircle it like a citadel. It was a great bass fishing lake. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission also stocked it with hybrid stripers back then, but stopped at the request of local bass anglers.

It's also a great crappie lake. I learned this in 1995 while fishing with a fellow named Dan Laird of Waldron. He used special gray jigs with gray deer hair and tinsel, and we used them to haul up a limit of giant crappie from a submerged fence row that was conspicuous then, but not now. High water has covered it or time has taken it away, or maybe both. At any rate, that spot was elusive to a 21-year old memory.

There's also an old pond that is part of an inundated homestead. Mitch Looper of Hackett showed that to me in 1995, as well. Mitch's late father was a local legend on Lake Hinkle, and Mitch said that people used to watch him from the bank through binoculars to try to find his brushpiles. The pond's dam is underwater, too, and it's a fine place to fish later in the spring.

Lake Hinkle has been heavy on my mind lately, and I've talked about it with such ardor that it prompted a friend to play hooky from work to join me Monday.

A cold front had blown in on the heels of a biting northwest wind. Take your pick. "Wind from the north, don't go forth," or "Wind from the west, fish bite best." It will be one or the other, there's no middle ground.

Still, as my buddy Alan Thomas says, "If you wanna know, you gotta go," so my AWOL friend and I made the long haul from central Arkansas to almost the Oklahoma line.

Lake Hinkle is impounded from Jones Creek, with which I have a checkered history, as well. When it is full, as it is now, it looks like one of the many fabled trout streams of the Appalachians. It is so alluring right now that my friend wanted to fish it.

"I learned my lesson about this creek a long time ago," I said. "I used to come out here in the spring and fish until my arms hurt. I never got a bite.

"And then I came out here in the summer and found out why," I added. "It was nothing but solid bedrock. There wasn't a drop of water anywhere except a few small pools."

The lake was very high on the boat ramp when we arrived, and the wind cut like a scythe. A work crew from the Game and Fish Commission used a giant scow to haul what appeared to be sand to a swim beach at Little Pines Recreation Area, one of my favorite campgrounds.

Most of trees I remember from the 90s were gone, but I found a fence row after idling around and scanning my sonar.

We tied the boat to a tree, cast light jigs out past the branch line, counted down to 10 and retrieved slowly. My friend caught a huge crappie on the third cast, but snagged his jig on a submerged limb on the next cast. We didn't get a bite after that. My friend believes he scattered what fish were there when he shook the limb.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service was conducting a massive controlled burn to the northwest in the Ouachita National Forest. The wind blew the smoke our direction and darkened the sky such that we could look at the sun without a filter. Ashes landed in the water around us, and the smoke played havoc with our sinuses.

The Forest Service has been doing controlled burns in this area since the 1990s, too. They have done wonders for its wildlife and plant life, but this one put an exclamation point on an overall bad day for fishing.

I'll be back on a better day, and it won't take 21 years.

Sports on 03/15/2018

Upcoming Events