BUFFALO NATIONAL RIVER - Five anglers caught smallmouth bass just about every way they can be caught, including more big ones than usual.
Bill Eldridge of Benton, Rusty Pruitt of Bryant, Ray Tucker of Little Rock, Matthew Eldridge of Dallas, Texas, and I convened last Sunday through Tuesday for our annual May float on the Buffalo River. A combination of multiple family crises threatened to scuttle the outing, but it all came together at the last minute.
The core of this group - Bill Eldridge, Pruitt and I - have made this trip since 2007. Matthew Eldridge joins when he can. My son Matthew and late son Daniel usually joined us, as well, as does Ed Kubler of Benton, who spurned us this time to spend time with his new bride.
It was Tucker's first overnight float fishing trip on the Buffalo, and he was excited.
"I've been waiting to do this for forever" Tucker said. "I've heard about it and read about, but didn't know anyone that actually did it until I met you guys."
He certainly came prepared. We all sleep on inflatable air mattresses, but Tucker brought an oversize model that was about 2 feet high fully inflated. Hubcap-size ribeye steaks grilled on a gravel bar are always the first night's highlight, but Tucker took that to new heights, too. The steaks he brought were about 2 inches thick.
Tucker also showed us a new grilling hack that saved our supper from a thundershower the first night. The pit was a shallow depression in the gravel to hold the charcoal flanked by two long slabs of sandstone. The slabs were identical and looked quarried, but they were merely the results of eons of river sculpting.
Tucker placed the steaks on the grill, which covered the pit, and then covered the entire affair with a sheet of aluminum foil that shielded the pit and meat from the rain.
Tucker approved when we all requested our steaks be cooked medium well.
"I don't like rare because the outsides sear, but the inside is grainy when you cut it," Tucker said. "Medium well makes it consistent and tender."
That's exactly how they finished, too, and the flavor was exquisite. A veteran griller, Tucker used an undisclosed mix of seasonings. After much badgering, he disclosed that Burl's Smokehouse seasoning was the signature ingredient.
He really liked the pit.
"I'm not ever going to buy another grill," Tucker quipped. "I'm going to sell my grill and dig a hole in my backyard and grill this way from now on."
Sunday's float from Spring Creek to a gravel bar near the Hwy. 14 Bridge was memorable. The flow was ideal for floating, but slow enough for fishing. We spent most of the day in the company of several big groups, including one containing about a dozen people that was chaperoned by a guy we called "The Chairman." He sat in a makeshift throne built upon a makeshift raft and directed his group with a microphone and loudspeaker. When he wasn't giving orders, he sang, including an off-time, off-key rendition of The Black Crowes' "Hard to Handle."
Even with all that commotion the fishing was very good. The river has changed a lot over the years, though, and we've had to adapt. There is so much slimy green growth on the riverbed that bottom contact baits are virtually out of play. Soft plastic lizards, Tiny Brush Hawgs and tube jigs are unusable because they foul immediately.
So much moss floats in the water that crankbaits and othelures with exposed hooks are out of play, as well.
Shane Goodner of Hot Springs, of Catch 'Em All Guide Service, offered a remedy when we got back home. He said the same thing has happened to the South Fork of the Ouachita River.
"The way to get around that," Goodner said, "is to use Nanofil and really heavy soft plastics, like Senkos, that don't require additional weight. It'll come through that stuff a lot easier and allow you to fish."
You can also add internal weight to those lures by pushing sections of nail into the body, or specially made internal weights.
Bill Eldridge loves to fish lizards in the shoals, but he got around the drifting moss by fishing small swimbaits in the middle depths, and he caught more fish than ever.
I mostly use topwater lures these days. I don't catch as many fish as with bottom contact baits, but I catch bigger fish, and I live for the sight and sound of a bass blowing up on a topwater plug.
Pruitt's passion is fly fishing, and he's found an effective method that combines fly fishing with trolling. He uses a 3-weight rod and attaches two small bobbers to a long leader. On the tippet is a hand-made jig that he calls a Gee Whiz. The bobbers keep the jig high in the water column, and Pruitt wedges the rod butt between his legs while he paddles.
Smallmouth bass can't resist it, and every fish feels like a lunker.
"Everything is big on a 3-weight!" Pruitt yelled as he battled a 12-inch smallmouth.
Matthew Eldridge is the most deliberate angler. He finds subtle nooks in the bank that break current and wedges the bow of his canoe into mud or some other kind of "anchor." He fishes that one spot for half an hour or more, and he almost always catches a good fish. His biggest of this trip was nearly 18 inches long.
The crowds departed on Monday, and the fishing got even better. I caught my biggest smallmouth, a 16-incher, on a topwater and lost several others. Losing those fish mystified me because they hit forcefully. The rod loaded when I set the hook, and I fought them briefly before I felt the hooks pull loose. It got very tiresome.
Tucker grilled some delicious cheeseburgers the second night, and we spent hours chatting and watching satellites zip overhead. One was so low and so bright that we surmised it was the international space station.
We took our time on Tuesday. Matthew Eldridge had to get back to Dallas, so we let him set the pace. It was his best fishing day yet, and Tucker's too.
As has become our private custom, Pruitt and I beached our canoes on the last gravel bar above Rush. Pruitt was close to my boys, and my late son Daniel loved to burn bamboo because it sounds like machine gun fire. They used to burn enough to sound like an all-night firefight.
Dan passed away on May 28, 2016.
Pruitt lit a small fire on the bar and threw in a pile of cane that he gathered. The pops reverberated from the bluffswhile we kicked back and shared funny stories.
Tucker and Matthew continued catching fish almost until they put their canoes on the trailer.
Not every trip is that good. This is the kind you never forget.
Sports on 05/27/2018