The color of success

Big striper, walleye highlight gray day

Chris Larson of Roland caught this 17-pound striped bass while fishing with the author Friday on the Ouachita River above Lake Ouachita.
Chris Larson of Roland caught this 17-pound striped bass while fishing with the author Friday on the Ouachita River above Lake Ouachita.

If fishing is art, then Friday's trip to the upper Ouachita River was a study in monochrome.

The air was gray. The rain was gray. The river was gray. The lifeless trees were gray. Even the evergreens looked gray.

In fact, there was no distinct separation between water, air and sky. It was all a giant veil of gray speckled by gray rocks on the banks and hillsides. The only contrast was from moss along the shoreline, and it seemed to maintain a shaky truce with a fading but still formidable winter.

How fitting that even the striped bass and walleye were gray, but they were why we came.

My partner was Chris Larson of Roland, a fellow Ouachita River disciple of the late Scott Hunter, who taught us the code of this magnificent but overlooked fishing destination. We're talking about the stretch above Lake Ouachita, from the fall line where it enters the lake to the River Bluff Float Camp.

Like the Buffalo River, the Lake Ouachita headwaters are narrow and rocky. It is suitable only for canoes and kayaks in the summer and fall, but in late winter, when it is swollen from rain, you can run it with jet-powered outboards. If it is really high, those with steel nerves can run it in propeller-driven boats.

In February, striped bass and walleyes leave Lake Ouachita and migrate upriver to spawn. Walleyes, which are native to the Ouachita River system, spawn successfully. Stripers, which are not native, do not spawn as successfully. However, you can often catch them together. If you are really lucky, big smallmouth bass will complete the Ouachita River Triple Crown. I have also caught big saugeyes, a hybrid between a walleye and sauger, as well as largemouth bass, Kentucky bass and white bass. Together, they make these narrow, shallow waters one of the most diverse and dynamic game fisheries in the state for a few glorious weeks.

In recent weeks, Larson and other fishing companions have caught small numbers of striped bass, but walleyes have been scarce. Their best trip was three weeks ago, when Paul White of Little Rock caught a 4.17-pound smallmouth.

On Feb. 16, Jerry Howell of Little Rock caught two stripers -- 14.4 pounds and 15.65 pounds -- and a huge freshwater drum.

Larson was proud that his guests flourished, but he lamented that he hadn't caught fish.

"You need to go with me," I replied in a text. "You always catch when you fish with me."

Larson carved out a few hours from his busy schedule to fish Friday, and we met at our favorite spot at 10 a.m. It had rained all morning, and a northeast wind drove the damp air through our bones. The river was very high and fast, but not terribly off-color.

"The main thing is there's a lot of junk in the water," Larson said. "You can't keep a bait down very long without it fouling with leaves and stuff. It makes it really hard to fish."

Also, our usual lures don't seem to work anymore. Hunter was rigidly dogmatic in his style of fishing. According to him, you can only catch walleyes with a medium-light action spinning rod and 6-pound test Sufix line. The only lures that walleyes will bite are rainbow trout-colored Long A Bomber stickbaits and occasionally a Long A fire tiger.

That's not true. They'll bite all kinds of things, as Larson and I learned in 2017 when we caught fish all day on herringbone pattern Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn stickbaits. That's a much smaller lure than the big Long A Bomber.

This year, walleyes and stripers won't bite rainbow trout and fire tiger lures. The hot color has been gold/black back/orange belly. The shorter version with two treble hooks has gotten a lot more strikes than the three-hook version.

We began trolling at the Powerline Hole, but we got no bites.

We ascended to the next hole, which ends at Striper Corner.

"You can't see them now, but there's a big course of boulders up about 300 yards where I always catch fish," I said.

"Yep, that's been the spot for us this year, too."

On the second pass through the boulders, Larson's St. Croix rod bent backwards.

"That's a fish!" Larson said as he swung the tiller on his 20-horsepower Mercury jet drive to catch up to his quarry.

"You can run all you want, big boy," Larson said. "We can chase you around all day if we have to."

Although the fish kept Larson's rod bowed into a deep arc, it didn't make any hard, drag-squealing runs. It hugged the bottom with such tenacity that Larson momentarily wondered if it were a drum.

Eventually the fish began to tire, and its burly gray form materialized at the surface. Larson maneuvered it into the net, and I hoisted it aboard. The striper was a shade over 17 pounds, but it looked bigger.

One key to catching walleyes and stripers in the river is for a stickbait to nick the bottom where fish lay. This water was too deep, and rarely did my lure touch bottom. That prompted me to switch to a lighter rod and tie on a fire tiger Bagley's deep-diving crankbait.

That did the trick. The lure caromed off rocks and wobbled violently. Soon I felt a soft double tap, followed by a mushy weight in the line. It was the telltale bite of a walleye. I swept my rod forward, and minutes later Larson netted a strapping 3-pounder.

We spent our remaining time in the best smallmouth hole, but we got no more bites. It didn't matter. Our success splashed a swatch of color on an otherwise gray canvas.

photo

Photo courtesy of Chris Larson

The author switched to a deep-diving fire tiger Bagley’s crankbait to catch the day’s only walleye Friday on the Ouachita River.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BRYAN HENDRICKS

Stripers have been biting more subtle colored lures than usual in the Ouachita River this month. These Bombers have been the most consistent.

Sports on 02/24/2019

Upcoming Events