The purity of wading: Smallmouth, Ozark bass bite for anglers on foot

J.T. Staggs of Little Rock admires his last fish of the day on the Buffalo River, a 16-inch beauty that struck downstream from the campground at Steel Creek.
J.T. Staggs of Little Rock admires his last fish of the day on the Buffalo River, a 16-inch beauty that struck downstream from the campground at Steel Creek.

PONCA -- I've fished from the fanciest saltwater charters and fastest bass boats, from elite kayaks and canoes, but I love the purity of wade fishing most of all.

I haven't had a good wade fishing trip in years. I get out and wade when fishing from canoes, but I'm talking about wade fishing without a boat. If you get in water that's over your head, you have to swim or go around it. Swimming is preferable to roaming through stinging nettle and dense brush on the bank.

The main advantage to wading is that you must fish slowly, and you cast at everything multiple times from multiple angles. You'll be amazed at how many fish inhabit featureless water, and also at how many big fish you catch.

Five of my favorite trips over the last 15 years were wade fishing trips, including a barn burner in 2017 on the South Fork of the Ouachita River with Ray Tucker and Shane Goodner. We caught 86 bass that day, setting Goodner's record as a guide. Federal magistrate judge Joe Volpe and his son John caught 87 last week. The judge refused to let Goodner stop until they broke our record.

The other wade shootouts were on the Strawberry River, Crooked Creek and the South Fork of Sylamore Creek in 2006, and on the upper Buffalo River six or seven years ago.

An opportunity to revisit the upper Buffalo arose recently when Rodney Staggs of Little Rock said that his son John Thomas -- J.T. -- wanted to go on a smallmouth fishing trip for his 15th birthday. It would be his first smallmouth outing.

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I recommended the upper Buffalo at Steel Creek, and after a protracted back-and-forth about gear and tactics, I offered to assist them personally.

Rusty Pruitt of Bryant joined us, and we rode together to Steel Creek Recreation Area on a cool, rainy Saturday that promised excellent fishing provided it didn't rain. Steel Creek is near the head of the Buffalo River, and it can rise dramatically if it rains a lot in the highland area known among whitewater paddlers as the Hailstone River.

Our excitement was palpable as we disembarked from my truck and assembled our gear. The arrangement was for Pruitt and Rodney Staggs to work downstream. J.T. Staggs and I would work upstream toward Ponca.

That part of the river is narrow and mostly shallow, but it has deep, compact holes containing a lot of rocks and boulders. If your lure snags -- and it will -- and if you can't free it by popping your line, you will have to swim to it and hope you can poke it loose with your rod tip or gain leverage bobbing above it. This is difficult because you will also be dog-paddling against current.

Upstream from the campground, the tree canopy encloses and shades the river. If it is sunny and hot, this is a cool place to spend a day hip deep in the water.

Pruitt relished this opportunity to fly fish. Rodney Staggs used spinning tackle with soft plastic lizards and Zoom Baby Brush Hawgs.

J.T. Staggs had two spinning rigs. One had a soft plastic, and the other had a topwater lure. He kept the reserve rig wedged in his backpack's water bottle holder.

I used a spinning rig consisting of a Wavespin 1500 ZTR reel and a medium-action Berkley Cherrywood rod. I used a Ned rig most of the day. Later I switched to Zoom Mini Lizards in pumpkin/red and watermelon/candy and an old standby, the Yum Craw Papi.

J.T. and I entered the first hole at the campground parking lot near the Buffalo River Trailhead. We started catching fish immediately, mostly Ozark bass. Some were very small, but many were big enough to eat had we been inclined and equipped to keep them.

The smallmouths were about 8-10 inches, but even fish of that size acquit themselves admirably against a light drag.

J.T., a quiet, serious fellow, immersed himself in the milieu. He fished a few yards ahead of me and studied every piece of cover. If better water was on my side, we switched sides. It didn't seem to matter, though, because our catch rates were about the same.

Naturally, we did have to swim a few times to free lures. It was exceedingly difficult to gain purchase because slick algae and diatomaceous slime coated the streambed and every big rock. Walking over big rocks was like doing a caffeine-fueled vaudeville soft-shoe routine that would have registered bigly, to borrow a word, on a Fitbit. The calorie expenditure was prodigious, and it was also tedious.

Once upon a time, one could stand upon a big boulder and free a lure wedged in the deep run below. Unless you have felt soles or wading chains, you can forget that. You'll kick and dance your way off that rock and every other rock you contact until you can plant your feet in a bed of gravel. You can't blame the C&H hog farm for that because Steel Creek is miles above it.

Several kayakers that launched at Ponca floated past. One said he caught an 18-inch smallmouth farther upstream. I know the hole he described, and I believed him.

J.T. and I arrived at the best looking hole in the campground area. Water poured through a small riffle into a deep hole at about a 70-degree angle. This little pocket is a textbook smallmouth hole, with multiple eddies, deep scours behind boulders, a little side pocket that backflows against a bed of water willow, and a submerged log. We caught a couple of small fish there, but we were disappointed not to hook a jackpot bass.

Above that was a long hole with a deep, narrow channel that runs against a steep bank with overhanging trees. With the sky darkening by the minute, T.J. hooked his jackpot bass, a 16-inch smallmouth that fought like a demon.

A few minutes later, I caught its twin on a Craw Papi.

It started raining shortly after I released it, and we didn't get another bite.

"We caught the heck out of them, and our biggest fish were our last fish," I said. "That's how you want to finish."

T.J. agreed, and we walked back to the truck in a downpour that raised the river about four inches.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BRYAN HENDRICKS

Although J.T. Staggs targeted smallmouths, he caught a larger number of feisty Ozark bass.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BRYAN HENDRICKS

Large numbers of centipedes crawled on shallow rocks in the Buffalo River. A centipede pattern on a fly rod would have been deadly for smallmouth bass and Ozark bass.

Sports on 08/18/2019

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