RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — The relatively few times I can remember a break in the summer doldrums of late July or August have generally involved the leftovers from a hurricane working up from the Gulf Coast. Even less seldom, we’ll get a good, old-fashioned soaker of a rain from a cold front that works to rekindle the spirits of many an outdoorsman in Arkansas. (Yes, I know, I am looking forward to fall and hunting seasons, too.)
Still, a return to heat and humidity is inevitable. After all, this is Arkansas, and we’re still in the period when sizzling, sultry and scorching can easily be attributed to descriptions of our day-to-day weather.
What is a Natural State outdoorsman to do? Fellow scribe Keith Sutton has offered up some suggestions through this very venue, telling tales of nighttime bass fishing and setting forth a handful of destinations to fish for trout in the crystalline waters of Arkansas’ colder mountain streams.
Truly, there is nothing like watching a fog hanging over portions of the upper White River, the North Fork or any of our other trout waters at dawn and feeling its cooling effects as the first breeze of a summer morning stirs the day awake.
There are still other ways for outdoorsmen to beat the heat, though, including tangling with creatures of the night, like the bass of which Sutton wrote.
Every time I hear that phrase - creatures of the night, I think about the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Written in 1963, the book was a mainstay for younger gradeschoolers by the time I was doing homework more than a decade later.
We may not be going onquite the adventures that work portrayed, but getting out under the moon and the stars can provide relief from the dog days of summer, open the door to another set of outdoor possibilities and even provide the setting for a fireside ghost story or two.
All that is left now is to turn the air conditioner to high, take a nap, then head out an hour or two before sunset. Where are we headed? Take your pick - bass, catfish, brown trout, crappie or bullfrogs.
Bass
Even some of our usually more turbid waters have settled out and cleared by this point in the summer. Of course, deepwater impoundments like Ouachita, Bull Shoals, Norfork and others are almost always clear. But right now, clear water is the general rule, even for farm reservoirs, sloughs, bayous and river oxbows.
All of these waters can provide top-notch fisheries with largemouth, spotted and smallmouth bass being among the most sought species. While we may have difficulty seeing our way across the bedroom to turn on the bathroom light in the dark, the eyes of a bass can pick out movement much more easily in low-light conditions.
A story I read some years ago in one outdoor magazine held a theory that some bass are only active at night. That may or may not be true, but using the darkness for cover is a good way to find bass that hold up in shady spots during the heat of the day and then strike out in search of food while the sunlight is off the water.
An obvious choice of lure here is a topwater bait. The specific kind of bait will depend on the type of cover being fished. For instance, you wouldn’t want to cast a chug bait with threesets of treble hooks into a mat of floating vegetation.
So, match the bait to the cover, with chuggers and similar plugs being reserved for more open water. Tie on a buzzbait or bulge a spinnerbait for something a little more weedless, or go to a moss bait like a Scum Frog for those tougher, tighter spots.
A long-held rule of thumb has heralded black as the go-to color for bass fishing with topwaters at night. But, of late, some anglers have eyed more garish colors as the ones of choice - neon pink, chartreuse or yellow. Still others believe that a clear topwater bait is the way to go.
Just remember that bass feed by sound as much as by sight at night, so a lure that creates a fuss is likely going to catch some fish. Just as the bass use their hearing abilities, anglers can turn the tables and listen for surface disturbances caused by schooling forage fish, predator fish preying on those smaller ones or even the strike of a bigbass on a topwater lure.
Catfish
Just about any body of water in Arkansas big enough to float a cork holds some catfish, from the diminutive bullheads to the giant flatheads and blues. When going after catfish afterdark this time of year, consider rivers like the Arkansas River, stocked ponds, north Arkansas’ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lakes and other spots.
Being versatile is key to loading up the ice chest and, in turn, the frying pan with a good mess of catfish. These fish can be angled with cane poles, rods and reels, yo-yos, noodles, jugs, trotlines, limblines and other devices. While some people do fish for catfish during the day, one can hardly argue with the fact that these fish are generally considered nocturnal predators.
Catfish - bullheads, channels, flatheads and blues - generally move shallower at night to feed. The baits are the same ones you would use during the day, such as liver, blood baits, cut shad, catalpa worms and nightcrawlers. The list of bait possibilities for catfishing is a long one.Just ask your grandfather about dog food, lye soap or cottonseed cakes. Still, out of all the baits for catfishing, it is live bait that will more often than not attract the more finicky flatheads.
If hand-to-hand combat with Mr. Whiskers is desired, fish near the banks, on a flat near a drop-off or even with a bobber that will hold the bait up off the bottom. The aid of a glow-stick or lighted-chamber bobber can make it easier to detect bites at night, as can a bell attached to a rod rigged without a bobber.
Whatever I could write about catfishing pales in comparison to what Sutton, nicknamed “Catfish,” could relate. The former Arkansas Game and Fish Commission editor and longtime outdoor writer has detailed catfishing in Arkansas, elsewhere in the United States and even abroad in previous magazine articles and books.
In fact, he’s been one of my outdoor educators when it comes to catfishing. As proof, the suggestion to go shallow at night for catfishing comes in part from what Sutton has written about his exploits of boating or beaching giant flathead cats in as little as one foot of water while fishing in the dark.
Brown trout
Think North Fork, White and Little Red rivers. The list of possible in-state destinations seems like a short one for these tackle-breaking bruisers, but the deep-water haunts that hold them are plentiful in these three Arkansas trout streams.
Like those big flathead cats,these cold-water behemoths pull themselves from an afternoon nap in their holes and head to the shallows for a summertime midnight snack.
Picking out a lure here is a choice similar to the one for an angler wanting to bass fish under the cover of darkness. Topwater offerings such as swimming minnow lures, floating flies and lightweight spinners are some of those that make most browntrout aficionados’ short lists. The biggest difference between going after the browns versus the bass is that the trout are generally caught in current, which can hamper the use of some of the conventional bass baits.
While trout fishing on these ultraclear rivers often means downsizing to 2-pound or 4-pound test line, the low-light conditions from dusk till dawn allow fishermen to tangle on a more level playing field with fish that sometimes top 40 pounds. It’s not out of the question to go as heavy as 10-pound or 12-pound test under these circumstances. Just remember to set the drag so a trophy brown can make a few runs without snapping the line.
Crappie
We’ve been talking low-light conditions, low-light conditions, low-light conditions. Ready to buck the trend?
Catching crappie at night involves just the opposite. Instead of allowing the shroud of darkness to continue to envelop everything, a nighttime crappie angler hangs a light low over the water or places a floating light in the water. The idea here is that the light will attract bugs and minnows to the area.
So, you want to set the light near cover that is likely to hold some fish - boat docks, brush tops, log piles, stump beds, etc. Then, with the bugs and minnows working around in the water below the light’s glare, anglers drop a minnow, a jig or a jig and minnow combo under the light. Hopefully, bigger fish will come around to investigate the activity. That’s when the crappie and other game fish like black bass, walleyes and even catfish get into the act.
Of course, keeping minnows alive at the peak of Arkansas’ summer heat and humidity can be an uphill battle. So, for those choosing to go with artificials, consider a jig that will reflect light well in both light and dark conditions. This has importance because the scenario here involves fishing in direct light under the light source, in partial light around the fringes and in dark water just beyond the light’s effects.
With this in mind, color combinations like black/chartreuse, black/firetail or blue/ pearl would be among the logical picks.
Bullfrogs
Remember the game we’d play in grade school? Sometimes, it was even an exercise in grade-school classes. There would be pictures of a basketball, a baseball, a soccer ball and a football. We’d then have to decide which one did not belong.
Yes, it would seem that the bullfrogs don’t belong. They aren’t scale-covered like the bass, trout or crappie already mentioned, and they don’t have fins like those creatures or the catfish. But they definitely are a creature of the night.
I hear outdoorsmen lament that there just aren’t any frogs around anymore. But, I honestly don’t think that we frog hunt nearly as hard or in nearly the numbers we used to. I’ve seen some decent populations of bullfrogs around bayous, farm canals, ditches, reservoirs andlakes across the southeastern half of the state.
As with going after nighttime crappie, you will need a light. In this case, however, you are going to be holding the light andshining it around to find a pair of eyes - hopefully a frog’s and not a cottonmouth’s. Probe the darkness around logjams, the shoreline, shallow-water vegetation and similar features to find bullfrogs. If you can obtain permission to frog hunt on a fish farm, you may think you’ve found a gateway to hunters’ heaven. Here, clean pond banks allow giggers or grabbers, if you prefer to catch frogs by hand, an easy view and easy access to frog legs in waiting.
Going after bullfrogs is a hit-and-miss scheme for those learning the ropes. And even those who have been at the game a while will still lose a few frogs that leap into the water, slide off the bank or drop out of sight into floating vegetation. One big key here is to make sure the light being used is strong enough to blind a frog to your movements. This will help you to get within gigging or grabbing range.
As with any outdoor activity, exercise safety first. Remember that you might not be the only one out and about who can’t see farther than your face and that moccasins and mosquitoes also enjoy the nighttime hours.
River Valley Ozark, Pages 150 on 07/25/2010