Fishing Report - Arkansas Game and Fish Commission This is the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's fishing report. It Central and Northern Arkansas. For a complete State report you can visit the Arkansas Game And Commission Site at www.agfc.com. This Report published by AGFC on Jan. 8, 2003. Fishing Tip: If you're not fishing this time of year, it's a good idea to take your tackle out and clean it up. Get the dirt and fish slime off your reels with soap and water, lube them and put on fresh line. Inspect the guides and tip tops for nicks or rough areas that can cut into your line. CENTRAL ARKANSAS: Lake Conway: Bates Field and Stream said fishermen are catching a few small bream using worms. Crappie fishing is good around Gold Creek with jigs in any color combined with chartreuse. Little Red River: Lindsey's Rainbow Resort said the water is low and the fishing is very good. The browns are still in the shoals. The best bait for bait fishing is still a Power Egg and wax worm combination. Greers Ferry: Shiloh Marina said crappie are suspended in water 10 to 15 feet deep. Rain should have pulled bass up to about 10 to 15 feet. Whites and hybrids are deep. Walleye are hitting crank baits. Fairfield Bay Marina said crappie fishing remains good to excellent in 10 to 15 feet of water. No reports on bass or hybrids. Lake level is at 455.71 and temp is holding at 48-49 degrees. Harris Brake Lake: Coffee Creek Landing said the fishing has been very slow, but anglers are catching a few catfish and crappie near the dam. Lake Overcup: Lakeview Landing said bream are biting on crickets, but a few are being caught using worms. Crappie fishing is good using small jigs and tube jigs. Fishermen are also picking up a few crappie using shiners and pink minnows. Bass are hitting dark plastic worms. Overcup Landing said Overcup fishing is slow at present. The rain and wind raised the lake about six inches and the water is dingy. Bass have been slow. Crappie are doing better on minnows in the dinghy water. Bream are still being caught on red worms around the boat docks. Some catfish are being picked up with chicken livers and hearts. Cadron Creek: Wooster Grocery said the crappie fishing is good using minnows. Beaverfork Lake: Wooster Grocery said crappie are hitting minnows. Lake Cargile: Overcup Landing said crappie are hitting small minnows. Bream are slow and catfish are hitting cut shad and nightcrawlers. Bass are slow, but some are being picked up on dark crank baits. Brewer Lake: Wooster Grocery said the crappie are hitting minnows. Toad Suck Lock and Dam: Bates Field and Stream said the catfishing is good using cut or live shad. Little Maumelle River: River Valley Bait said redear are hitting worms. Crappie fishing is good using minnows or chartreuse jigs anywhere from five to 15 feet deep. They range in size from small up to 3¼ pounds. Catfish are hitting just about any type bait. Lake Maumelle: Jolly Roger's Marina said black bass are good and can be found in the shallow water and are hitting crank baits. Kentucky bass are good and can be found in 10 to 15 feet of water and hitting plastics in dark colors as well as crawfish which are working extremely well. Crappie are good in 15 to 20 feet of water and are hitting minnows or red and white 1/32 ounce jigs. Bream are slow, but a few can be found in about 15 to 20 feet of water using crickets. Catfish are fair in 15 of water and are hitting large minnows and prepared baits. White bass are still schooling around the restricted area and are hitting C.C. spoons. Arkansas River: Charley's Hidden Harbor near Oppelo said the river flow is at 21,000 cubic feet per second with a headwater level of 286.7 and a tailwater level at 265.5. Catfish are still going strong in deep holes in the main part of the river. Shad and nightcrawlers are working best. Saugers are starting to pick up below the dam on jigs tipped with minnows pulled through the jetties. Crappie are in Point Remove Creek and other tributaries and hitting minnows fished eight to 12 feet deep. White bass and stripers are picking up downstream from the dam and hitting shad-colored crank baits. Bass are in calm water away from the current. Spinners thrown in the back of jetties are working well. Drum are still strong on crawfish-colored jigs near jetties. NORTH ARKANSAS: White River: Gaston's White River Resort said the fishing is great with an 11-pound brown caught on a buoyant spoon this past weekend. The best baits are the yellow Power Eggs, nightcrawlers, Colorado Spoons, silver rogues and white 1/8th ounce Marabou jigs. The best bait for fly-fishing is sow bugs, black leeches and salmon egg patterns. Wilderness Trail said trout fishing on the White River has picked up nicely with Berkley Power Eggs in fluorescent yellow, merthiolate and white and Belgian Red Worms. The Buoyant Spoon, Colorado Spoons and Krocodiles are working well when there is generation. The fly fishermen have been doing well on olive Wooly Buggers, egg patterns in pink and white, and gray scuds. Browns are being caught on rogues, small Countdowns and nightcrawlers. REMEMBER - there are a couple of new rules regarding trout. The limit is now 5 and there is no culling of the rainbows. You can go to the AGFC's website at www.agfc.com to get the 2003 changes. North Fork River: Fly-fishing guide John Gulley said the river is fluctuating throughout the day. Most of the power generation seems to be occurring at night. The midge hatch has been good recently. Midge pupa in olive and gray has been working well. During periods of high water, use San Juan worms, white or pink jigs and Power Eggs. Spin fishermen are catching trout on shad-colored jigs, Shad Raps and Countdowns. Bait fishermen are bringing in some nice fish on shad, Power Bait, worms and just about any lure imaginable. Bull Shoals Lake: With the snow and cold rain the lake temperature dropped to 48 degrees and a few degrees cooler in the back of the creeks that have water flowing in. This is a good time of the year to fish sunny banks that have big rocks on them. The sun will heat these areas up throughout the day and draw the game fish to them. The lake level actually rose over the last week; we are now at 652.61, which is only four and a half feet below normal pool. That is great for this time of the year. Crappie are still on their brush piles, only they are in the brush piles and biting on crappie minnows instead of artificial baits. Carry a lot of hooks and split shot with you when you go out, because you will lose some tackle in the brush. Largemouth bass have been active in trees along bluff walls, chunk rock channel swings and over sunken forests in the creeks and coves throughout the lake. Best baits have been jigs and pigs (brown or gourd green in color), spoons (silver, gold and white), hula grubs (green pumpkin or root beer in color) and suspending rogues or long bills. Smallmouth bass moved off the chunk rock points to the secondary points in the coves and creeks and onto channel swings (entrances and exits). They are still on a crawdad bite, only feeding on shad occasionally. Best baits remain to be Spider Jigs, tube baits, hula grubs and regular grubs. If you are going to spoon use a gold spoon, for some reason the smallies like that color at this time. Kentucky bass are spread out on the banks, in brush piles, along bluffs and over wooded drop offs. There are very few schools to be found throughout the lake, the water temperature is just not cool enough to force the shad deep and school the Kentucky's up. A variety of baits and colors are triggering some smaller Kentucky's to bite. Tube baits, jigs and hula grubs in crawdad colors work well. Grubs, suspending rogues and Sink-O's are also working well. Spoons are "iffy". One day they will hit them, the next day they won't. White or gray spoons have been catching more fish than silver. Try pitching a spoon into standing trees along the bluffs and let it flutter down past the tree; this technique has been inducing some strikes. Walleye have gone back into the creeks, not sure why, but that is where they are - around flats and chunk rock points. Best artificial baits are long bills, Mann's Stretch 20+ and Rapala Countdowns worked across the points. Live bait is so-so, shiners on a ball jig, fluorescent red or chartreuse head is working the best. Lake Norfork: Cranfield Junction Quik Stop said crappie fishing is good using minnows and tube baits. Anglers are beginning to see a little more striper activity using live bait or trolling. Bass fishing is good using jigs and jigging spoons and some fishermen are switching to rogues. White bass are hitting jigging spoons. NORTHWEST ARKANSAS Beaver Lake: Southtown Sporting Goods said crappie are about 20 feet deep around brush piles and are hitting jigs and minnows. Stripers are scattered, but are hitting Roadrunners or live shad mostly in the river arms up lake from Prairie Creek. Whites and hybrids are mixed in with the stripers. Bass fishing is good around chunk rock banks with jerk baits and jigs in natural colors. Beaver Dam Store said lake levels on Beaver Lake have risen nearly a full foot from lack of generation and snow runoff in the past week as warmer temperatures converted the snow into water. Currently, Beaver Lake is at 1,115.7 feet, up from 1,114.9 on Dec. 25. The lake is also turning over, a term used when the surface water gets colder and heavier than the warmer, lighter and deeper water layer. Fishing is normally off as even slight changing lake temperatures, oxygen and pH levels, affect the fish. During turnover, the water layers mix and temperatures become fairly consistent throughout the depths of the lake. The thermocline, that depth in the water where there is a dramatic temperature change, disappears until Spring and surface temperatures start warming the upper layer of water. The shallow and warmer water is best for fishing during the colder time of year. A few anglers are reporting fair success crappie fishing with jigs or minnows around six to 10 feet. Bass fishing reports are slow with some fair reports on live bait in the four to 12 foot depths of smaller local lakes and ponds. Lake Sequoyah: Lake Sequoyah Boat Dock said redear and bluegill are hitting worms. Crappie fishing is fair using jigs. Catfish are slow, but are hitting chicken liver or shad. Beaver Tailwaters: Beaver Dam Store said Beaver tailwater trout fishing has been fair early and late in the day. Wax worms are the best baits according to most anglers recently. A few fish were caught on Super Dupers, but jigs seem to be the better choice. Olive, black or brown are favored at the moment. Fly-fishing has been on the challenging side for most folks. Bead head olive Wooly Buggers, size 8-10 are fair as well as black. Late afternoons, fish are rising to Adams, size 18-22; midges, size 18-24, black or tan, are also fair in the afternoon. Kings River: Kings River Outfitters said the river is clear and still floatable. The smallmouth have been hitting Gitzits and tube baits fished deep and very slow. Lake Fayetteville: Lake Fayetteville Boat Dock is closed until Jan. 15. NORTHEAST ARKANSAS White River: Local fisherman Jeff Moore said the White River at Batesville is at 9.48 feet. The river is clearing and fishing is picking up. Trout in the Guion area are good and are being caught on a variety of baits. Drift fishing is the best method at the current river level. Drifting spinners tipped with worms, corn or Power Eggs is working well. Countdowns are producing some fish as are spoons such as Little Cleo's and Renegades. Bass fishing is picking up as the water clears. Most of the fish being caught are found in the creeks and sloughs and biting jig and frog combination and Gitzits. Dark colors have been best, especially black and brown or the combination of the two. Crappie fishing is picking up too in the sloughs and small lakes around the river. Most of the fish are being caught on yo-yos with minnows. Walleye fishing below Lock #2 and Lock #1 is fair. Creek minnows have been the most effective bait.