Springing into action

By Buddy Gough

PRAIRIE CREEK - A 70-degree March day like last Thursday can ignite a frenzy among Beaver Lake anglers anxious to get a jump on spring action. They arrive in droves, all envisioning hungry white and black bass on pre-spawn feeding binges. Those visions materialized last spring amid record high temperatures. But this March has been much closer to normal - generally cold and cloudy with a mix of rain and snow that has kept water temperatures in most areas of the lake from breaking 50 degrees. Still, Nicky Parson of Farmington and James Gilzow of Bella Vista were on the water early last Thursday with room to spare for an observer curious about even the slightest sign of a developing bass pattern. For example, word was out that a few small male whites were showing up as far up the White River arm as Twin Bridges. So there was a possibility of running into schools migrating upstream. However, as avid pursuers of black bass, Parson and Gilzow were out to get in a practice day for a forthcoming Central Pro-Am tournament they were teamed to fish. They were anxious to test the impact of a recent rise in the lake level of 4 feet or more. Such rises atthis time of year can be all shallows, where they can be caught on spinner baits.

BEYOND THE MUD LINE

Leaving from Prairie Creek Park at dawn, we headed south toward the Arkansas 12 bridge for a run up the lake's White River arm. The cold water temperature was immediately felt in the chilly layer of air at the water's surface as we sped across the lake. The next notable observation was crossing the "mud line" before we reached the bridge. The off-colored water was the result of runoff that had not only raised the lake level, but also produced a wall of muddy water that had gradually spread from the river arms down into the main lake.

The off-colored water would be a complication, but not a deterrent.

Although Parson regularly fishes for crappie and will even set a trotline from time to time, bassin' is his main game. He has been good enough at it in bass tournaments to earn the reputation as one of the best on Beaver Lake and beyond. Ergo, he bears watching on the water.

Continuing up the lake in Gilzow's big Champion bass boat, we occasionally dodged floating logs washed into the lake by the runoff. Somewhere south of Horseshoe Bend, Parson motored into a small feeder creek and headed toward its upper end.

"There's a good chance the water might already be clearing up some in the backs of the creeks and coves," Parson said.

Toward the back of the creek, we put the trolling motor down and began following the shoreline while casting to the bank with spinner baits.

Parson and Gilzow retrieved the spinner baits at a crawl in a manner known as "slow rolling."

"This is not the way to catch a lot of fish, but it's the way to catch a big fish, which is the main reason for being out here this time of year," Parson said.

The spinner baits tried first and others tried later were all locally made by War Eagle Custom Lures, the brand most popularwith Beaver Lake anglers.

Parson's specific choices, however, were designed for effective use in shoreline weeds and brush.

In mostly half-ounce size, they had double blades of willow-leaf shape, with the colors of the blades and skirts keyed to the off-colored water. I saw blades of copper, gold, silver, white and chartreuse and skirts mostly of white and chartreuse. The lures were used sometimes with a white or chartreuse trailer and sometimes without.

I noticed Parson kept the boat positioned no more than 20 to 25 feet from the bank to make many short casts, ostensibly to crawl the lures through as much of the shoreline cover as possible.

The first creek was fished allthe way to back, where Gilzow and Parson cast their offerings in 2-3 feet of water along the edges of brush and around floating logs pushed in by wind or runoff.

Except for one keeper spotted (Kentucky) bass, they had no big bites.

Thereafter, Parson began directing us to a series of creeks, coves and hollows that eventually would take us all the way to the Hickory Creek area.

The fishing areas had one thing in common. All were on the west side of the lake and situated so the prevailing southeasterly winds would blow straight up their channels and naturally push in schools of shad.

"If you are not fishing around shad this time of year, you aren't fishing," Parson said.

The problem, however, was little wind throughout the morning. Another complication was the blue sky above. The forecastwas for thunderstorms to be moving up from the south, and both fishermen were hoping for the weather to arrive to change the tough fishing.

"Come on clouds," Gilzow said.

"Come on wind," Parson added.

In the course of catching several small bass, Parson got only one big bite and lost the bass.

"Dang it! That was a good fish! Maybe 4 or 5 pounds," he said.

By the time we got to Hickory Creek around noon, the water was judged to be too muddy to continue any farther. "It's time for a drastic change," Parson said.

TO THE MAIN LAKE

The change involved running all the way back down the river arm, under the Arkansas 12 bridge and out into the main lake between Bear Island andRocky Branch. The long move happened to coincide with a breeze picking up from the south. "That's what we need," Parson said with certainty. It was to be a prophetic statement backed up with the catch of the biggest largemouth ever caught with me in the boat on Beaver Lake. Once again, we concentrated on fishing coves and small creeks situated to catch the full effect of the prevailing breeze. While we continued to cast spinner baits in backs of the coves and creeks, Parson advised trying a somewhat different pattern. This involved fishing crank baits and jerk baits toward the middle of the coves in water averaging 10-15 feet deep.

"We are looking for places where you have rock piles or the edge of a creek channel," Parson explained. "When the bass start to move, these are the kind of places where they will often stop and stage before headingon back to the shallows."

As the breeze became a wind and clouds began to appear to the south, the fishing action began to pick up with catches of smaller bass like a smallmouth and spotted bass of 15-16 inches.

For a while though, it looked like the catch of the day would be Gilzow's Megabass Vision jerk bait, a hot new lure costing a whopping $35.

After making a long cast, Gilzow's line inexplicably parted at the reel spool to lose the pricey lure. Almost miraculously, Parson hooked the sunken line on his next cast to save the bait.

An hour later, Parson was casting a brown-orange Wiggle Wart crank bait around a rock pile in the middle of a cove when he got his second big bite of the day.

The hooks held during quite a tussle, allowing a lunker largemouth to be brought to the net.

It was an old big-mouthed, big-bodied bass stretching 22 1 /2 inches with an estimated weight of 6 pounds or better.

The catch was less a matter of luck than the result of targeting the right kind of early spring location during good weather conditions.

"The wind was the main thing," Parson said.

As he had said earlier, the catch also was the main reason for being out on the lake this time of year.

Between the wind and the building storm clouds, Parson predicted we could head back up the river arm for a better chance of catching another big bass before sundown.

Lightning and thunder changed our minds.

Since last Thursday, cooler temperatures and more rain and muddy runoff have assured that early spring conditions will prevail for a while longer.

Three Rivers, Pages 115, 116 on 03/23/2008