Ar River still fishing tough for some of us

[blueplate]

Sherwood bass had a club tournament Saturday ex Tar Camp Ramp. 44 boats and 26 zero's. Only 2 limits.

Hope we start getting some flow to turn these fish on

Ron

[mojorig]

Unfortunately, I don't think it is because of lack of flow. It is likely due to three high water years taking its toll on the bass populations in the river. Combine the high flow with lack of food likely caused high natural mortality rates in the river. There might be a lean year or two ahead for the Arkansas River but after that it will be back to the good ol days!!

[Mark H.]

I second that mojorig. You will always have a few guys catchem, but its going to a couple of years before it gets good again. High water is good, but three years and a bad shad spawn last year and you have what we got right now.

[Dando]

I can't even spell Danitelle anymore. And DON'T WANT TO!

[JStew]

Ron - it was great to meet you on Saturday! You guys put on a great tourney. Fishing was brutal on the river - the only fish we were finding were way in the backwater, and they were all 1/4" short. I felt lucky to find the keeper I had. Buddy and I were glad to see 3p come around to put us out of our misery.

[cmclairday2]

I'm definitely ready for the dry spell on the river to end. Its made it tough to get out there for sure. I personally have had my worst year ever on the river this year.

[wildkat7]

There's plenty of good fishing on lakes around here....

[JStew]

All in how you like to fish. Drop shotting 40' deep in Degray just doesn't do it for me. Lately fishing my Bandit 100's, jigs, and spinnerbaits on the river isn't doing much either though. I can hardly wait for the fish to move shallow in the fall - then bye to the river for me.

[wildkat7]

I haven't fished deeper than 25-30 foot this year... Just gotta know the right spots...

[Dando]

I'm gonna add 20 more ft of line to all my reels and go fishin with Sam some day!

[wildkat7]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SkeeterDD22 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm gonna add 20 more ft of line to all my reels and go fishin with Sam some day! </TD></TR></TABLE>


LOL...

[arkbuck]

I dont know how much the high water has had to do with it. i have been fishing dardanelle all of my life and have lived on it for the past 10 years. to be honest the river always does this when it is hot and no flow. notoriously tough. in my opinion the high water kept alot of the fish in the backwaters the last 3 years where they were easy to locate and catch. when the conditons have been right this year i have caught fish like you should and they have been healthy. and there is shad all over the upper end now. with no signs of any kind of fish kill, but i dont know the AGFC did say the population was down some but nothing to be worried about. the biologist that shocks in the shoal bay area lives down the bay from me and he said if you could see all of the 5lb fish that come up in an area during the surveys you would be amazed! i hope the lake is fairing well but we will see.

[Dando]

Fishing pressure, high water over the last few years causing lack of grass, and there "was" a shad problem.

Last year, there was never a shad die-off when the water got cold.
For as long as I can remember, you could hit a backwater in late November and see shad flipping everywhere, floating dead, dying, sinking...all over the place.
EXCEPT: Last year....never saw it.
There just wasn't any shad there to die.
The fish moved away with what little shad there was and left the majority of these now "baren" areas.
Fishing pressure took the remainder, and "schooled" what was left. (There have been more HUGE tournaments/prefishing/etc in the last few years here than ever before). And these guys were good. If there was a fish to find, they'd find it, catch it, and haul it to Russellville.
The mortality rate is probably greater than what most people think. A "river" fish isn't going to survive in a brushpile on the lake for very long. (A Spadra fish won't make it long in Ouita).

Now, we have shad again and it won't be long before we have a new generation of bass that can't read "zoom" on a lure.
There will also be much less "tallent" out there pursuing them for a few years. (when a place starts sucking like this, big tournament trails will fish elsewhere).

It'll be back to normal in a couple of years. I guess every body of water has a cycle of good-bad fishing.

[cmclairday2]

That's probably a good estimate of what it will take to cycle back. If we can have a couple of years of decent water levels and flows, the river should be back on its game pretty quick.

[JStew]

I know the Dardanelle pool has taken a pounding. The past three years of high current has taken a ton of the tournament pressure off of the LR and Maumelle pools. They all moved to Dardanelle. What sacks are coming out of these pools are actually caught in Fouche creek or the Foursch La Fave river. My partner and I were fishing about 2 miles away from the river last Saturday. These are backwater and not river fish.

I'm finding a lot more of the shad schools I used to see on the river. What I can't find is the schools of bass moving with them. I will agree - the bass are schooled up and extremely difficult to find. They're not scattering on the laydowns or staging on the jetties as they have in the past. There is no grass anymore in the LR/Maumelle pools. They're not in the predictable places, even when there's good current. If you can find the schoolers in pre-fishing - they won't be anywhere near when you come back in a tournament. I think it's going to take a couple of years without high current to support healthy spawns and bring back the populations.

Kevin Short was right when he was talking about the Arkansas River at the River Rumble. The backwater areas are silted in and it's taking a toll on the fishing. Those areas give the fish a place to get out of the current in the spring to have successful spawns. The corps spends it's efforts keeping the channel clear - it needs to spend some time dredging outside the channel between the jetties.

[arkbuck]

DD22 i know what you mean you used to could go to panther creek in the fall and it would look like shark week on the discovery channel with all of the dead and dying shad being picked off by all kinds of fish. it was really a sight.

the river this year has been strange when it was good i hammered them when it was bad it SUCKED.... i did fish a tournament last Sat and for the first time in several years fished for 8 hours no bass one gar. hope it comes back its kind of hard to pass the boat ramp while you are pulling your boat to another lake when you used to walk down to the dock and get in it......................

[Dando]

From a different perspective.... I was listening to Billy McCaghren several weeks ago. Several of us sitting around the table after super while he told us "Elite series trail" fishing stories.
(It was no different than being 3yrs old and hearing Santa Claus stories)
(Billy could have been Marlin Perkins for all we cared)
He didn't get interupted once. He tried to leave once and we wouldn't let him

Anyway, aside from what he considered the worst fishing of his life (Miss River). He told us of what he'd discovered in his recent travels. Which, is something new to him...travelling and fishing different states.
"We may have lots of lakes in which to fish, but, Arkansas waters in general have got to be some of the worst places in which to Catch Fish".
He pretty much had come to the conclusions that if a person can catch fish in Arkansas, They can flat load the boat in other states.

I wonder, Can we blame AGFC for that?

[ditchdiggerjcfII]

Nope, they're broke. Just ask them.

[wildkat7]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SkeeterDD22 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
He pretty much had come to the conclusions that if a person can catch fish in Arkansas, They can flat load the boat in other states.

I wonder, Can we blame AGFC for that?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Might explain why so many Arkansans do well in tournaments on "top notched" fisheries...

[mojorig]

Yea, you can blame the AGFC for that because we get blamed for most everything else!!

Arkduck,

Frank, my team partner is also on of the biologist up there and we have discussed this issue a lot. Also I am one of the biologists in SE Ark and have pool 2-5 in the district so I will explain what I feel like is going on. We have fielded a ton of questioned from all angles and this is what we feel like is going on. Yes there is still a good number of 5 pound plus fish in the river but numbers from the samples are lower then in the past. The backwaters usually don’t take a hit from high water but the main river does. I would bet if we had data from the main river (we are currently working a protocol); we would see a large decline in the fish populations. With three high water years, it has taken a huge toll on the populations. For example, most spotted bass live from 4-5 years in the main channel. So if you take away some year classes you have trouble. Another example, everyone thinks Dumas has been on fire this year. Yes it has had a couple huge sacks but overall it has been very up and down. There is a lot of 6-8 pound fish but they are getting older and dying off due to natural causes. Last year was when Dumas was on fire. Every weekend, you needed 20-25 pounds to a check. At that time, there was a lot of 4-6 pounds fish. This just shows you how year classes can effect a population. If you had a couple missing year classes in there and it wouldn’t have been so great.

Also yes there is a lot of shad around NOW but they weren’t as plentiful over the last two year. Added the extra stress to fight the extra current and high turbidity and you have the making for high natural mortality. But as you mentioned there is a lot of shad now and also a lot of small 5-8 inch bass. So in a couple of years everything should be back to normal.

Also one of the thinking that Frank and I have is during 04-07 years the bass populations were so large that it was forcing a lot of fish from the backwaters to the main river to find food. Now the populations are lower and these fish are not being forced from the backwater to the river thus the reason for the decline in fish caught in the river. If you fished the main river channel over the last few years, you know that catches are way down. I used to catch 30-50 fish per trip and I’m down to a few fish per trip in the river.

It isn’t all doom and gloom in a few years the river will be back and strong this year will just be a memory!! In the mean time the reservoir have had a huge benefit from the high water years. I wish we (AGFC) had some magical powers to make it all better on the Arkansas River but there is no short solution. We could stock more fish but you would not see the benefits for a few years. Frank and I have been in discussion with ABA about working on a few things. Also, UAPB has been doing a lot of work of the bass population in the river.

If anyone has anymore questions, please ask. I will be glad to answer them!! ALso you can ask Ward (boogerdoc) also since he is the ABA president and has some idea of his own.