Arkansas Lakes Fishing Report

Lake - Bull Shoals 10/04/06

Ron Schneider guide,Tackle shop, 870 424 3381

Hi Folks!

Both lakes have come up slightly this past week, water temperature is in the mid 70’s.

On Bull Shoals, Wilderness Trail reports there is some Largemouth Bass action in the back of creeks and coves early in the morning. Try surface lures like Zara Spook Jr or Lucky Craft Sammy’s. Smallmouth are on pea rock banks and points in 18’ to 32’ of water. Try tube baits, Spider jigs, or brush hogs.

Walleye are a little tougher this week. Look on flats in 33’ to 38’ of water. Jigging spoons are catching a few, also trolling with lead core line and crankbaits, or bottom bouncers with a crawler harness.

On Lake Norfork , Cranfield junction says the action has slowed a little, with Stripers and Walleye still being caught in the dam area. Best bet this week has been jigging spoons or live bait.

The fish are a little shallower, now in 30’ to 40’ of water and just off the bottom. The new Bink’s spoon in white/green & brown back in 1 Oz size has been working well.

Bass are being caught on drop shot rigs with brown/purple or green pumpkin worms, try the mid lake area, both on points and part way into the creek arms.

Crappie action is picking up, live minnows are the best bet.

Bluegill are still hitting live Crickets in 15’ to 20’ of water.

Report #2

It looks like we are now going to move out of fall weather and into Indian Summer as we are going to be in the mid-80’s all week, which will warm the lake back into the mid-70‘s by the end of the week.

We already have gone from 70.6 degrees this last week to 72.8 degrees by the end of last week. Lake level has been steady and is at 649.01, 5 1/4 feet below normal pool. This week’s thermocline is about the same except it is not as wide as last week. It starts at 32 feet and runs to 38 feet throughout most of the lake. With the warm weather conditions we will not see a turn-over (or flip) for a while yet.

Crappie remain active around deep brush piles that are sitting in 26 to 28 feet of water. Crappie minnows fished on slip bobbers work well for the first or second crappie out of the brush pile but after that you need to switch to a reaction bait (Bobby Garland Swimming minnow or a crappie tube) to catch a few more out of the same brush pile.

Largemouth bass continue to do their top water thing in the mornings on buzzbaits, Zara Spook Jrs., Spit’N Image and Lucky Craft Sammys although this last week we not only had activity in the back of the creeks we also were able to catch some nice largemouth on the main lake points and in the main lake pockets, so there is some sort of movement from deep water to shallow water going on.

During the day fish Carolina Rigs with baby brush hogs or Zoom trick worms around secondary points. Smallmouth bass started to come up on to pea rock banks and points last week, but most of them were small. This week there were some nice 15 1/2 to 16” smallies that have moved in along with the smaller fish.

Spider Jigs and tubes are the key baits from 28 feet of water to the bank and football jigs or Mojo Rigs are working on the deeper smallies that are outside of 30 feet. Kentucky bass turned off spoons and drop shots this last week and have repositioned themselves on the bottom along channel swings and off chunk rock points. They are in 35 to 45 feet of water and Shaker Heads or football jigs are the best baits at this time.

Walleye were caught on the flats again this week but there are now more walleye showing up around chunk rock points in the creek arms. Their zone is in the thermocline, 33 to 42 feet and most of the walleye are close to the bottom.

Trolling with lead core continues to be the technique that is catching the nicer walleye. Best baits this week were Hot’N Tots, jointed Shap Raps, Reef Runners and 30+ deep Tail Dancers. The spooners also had a good week with some nice 6 to 8 pounders. The best spoon was the Binks spoon, in the double shad/white 1 ounce and the 3/4 oz. white.