Arkansas Bassin

[BDawg23]

I am headed down to Arkansas in early November to visit a college friend who lives in Little Rock. We are planning on fishing Lake Ouachita, Hamilton and maybe Degray over the long weekend I am there. We are going to be chasing largies, spots, wipers and stripers. I am thinking these fish should be schooled up on points headed back into creeks to chase shad that time of year.

Does anybody have any experience fishing large reservoirs like these in the fall? What baits and patterns do you think will be effective? Anybody have any ideas?

[BobOmaha]

No PERSONAL experience, but this article (below) just arrived in my in-box today from Bassmaster:

Fall Fishing - Shallow Crankbaits

[st.crioxfishin]

I fished a college event on Kentucky lake oct. 31 - nov. 1 a few years ago and we caught all our fish in the backs of small pockets and creek arms. The shad were loaded in those areas. Caught them all day long on walking baits, spinnerbaits, and traps. It was a little difficult to get many large fish, but caught close to 40 each day. I would think you'll be looking at the same situation in Arkansas - especially on Ouachita which seems to be a good topwater lake year round... I am definitely not an expert when it comes to reservoirs, but thats has been my limited experience on them in the fall.

[CHMOM]

I live in Arkansas but have never fished these areas but I found this site. Hope it helps.

AR Game and Fish

P.S. Shad is used up in North Arkansas a lot

[bryguy247]

I fished DeGray Last fall for a Division Championship event, and the fish were hard to come by. Mainly do to the water levels down about 12 feet from where they should have been. We did manage to catch some Spots that were chasing shad. We caught them on Zara Spooks. We fished deep up in one of the larger channels flipping creature baits and did catch a few nice largemouths. If the water is back to normal this year I would think the fishing would be a lot better. There are many points, submerged rock piles and trees to fish. And the scenery is absolutley beautiful down there. Good Luck to ya!

[BDawg23]

Great tips guys! I am really excited to put in some time on these large reservoirs.

bryguy247,

How difficult is it to find the submerged rockpiles? My buddy who lives down there says that a friend of his said to fish the deep rocks 18-22' that time of yera for big largies.

[bryguy247]

We mainly stumbled upon them, in the North West (west of the state park) area of the lake. They may show up on a good lake map. The ones we fished rose 4 to 5 feet from the bottom in 12 ft of water. Which would make the statement you heard, fishing 18 to 20 feet deep right becuase the water was down about 12 feet when I was there. There were guys doing ok on rock piles, but the stuff I fished was more like truck size boulders. We would drop shot around one, then move 20 feet and there would be another boulder, and kept working them back and forth. The fun part was while we would work those for the largemouth, about once an hour a school of Spots would blow up the water near by, so we would charge over to them and hit a couple with a spook and than go back to the rocks. But if they weren't breaking the surface for shad, we couldn't get the spots to bite on anything. I would say fish how you like, but always have a spook ready to hit those spots.

[BDawg23]

bryguy,

That is why I am excited to get down there to chase after some schooling spots! Did you catch any nice spots? I know the size of the fish won't be huge but I know they put up a great fight. Did you run into any stripers or wipers?

[bryguy247]

All I caught were spots and largemouth. only caught 2 Spots that were keepers. But even the ones that didn't make the cut were a blast to catch.

[hydrashack]

Late November will be more of a small crankbait, jig and jerkbait bite depending on water temp.

I was just down in OK this past weekend, grew up in NE OK, so I have some decent experience fishing reseviors.

Right now the shad are migrating to the backs of the creeks and it is a good top water and sqaurebill bite. But obviously things will be very different in a month.

But the three things I mentioned above should work and I agree with your take on where to start. Hopefully your friend who lives down there has a clue and can eliminate some water before you get down there. I would call a few tackle shops in Little Rock or Hot Springs and get a better feel for what the water temp in closer to your trip.

Water temp over in OK this past weekend was 72.

[BDawg23]

Thanks Hydrashack! I will definately give some bait stores down there a call. There aren't any good message board sites that I could find for this area. Does anyone know of any good Missouri/Arkansas sites?

[hydrashack]

www.basszone.com is a good site that a lot of tourney guys use down in OK, but getting info out of there can be spotty.

Not sure about AR or MO.

Late fall can produce some huge fish down there. Good luck.