HARRISBURG -- How do you fish a lake whose waters you have never touched?
Just do it.
On Tuesday, Rusty Pruitt and I fished Lake Poinsett for the first time. My first visit was Sunday during a campaign to visit all 52 Arkansas state parks in one year. One look at that glimmering, 640-acre aquatic diamond convinced me that I had to fish it as soon as possible.
Although it dwarfs them both, Lake Poinsett is an overlooked stepsister to lakes Austell and Dunn, the centerpieces at nearby Village Creek State Park. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission renovated Lake Poinsett in 2017-20, which entailed draining the lake and replacing the dilapidated water control structure. The loess soil of Crowley's Ridge is highly erodible, and Lake Poinsett's banks had experienced considerable degradation. The commission hired a contractor to stabilize banks with riprap. The contractor pushed bankside trees into the lake bed for fish habitat and created riprap ribbons along vulnerable shore areas. Concrete matting was installed in some places, as well.
Also, fisheries staff created thousands of fish attractors. Some are pallets stacked in various configurations. Others are fiber buckets containing flex pipe.
In the fall of 2021, the commission stocked catchable size catfish, bluegill, shad, shiners and other baitfish to create a forage base for game fish. In the spring of 2022, the commission stocked largemouth bass fingerlings. In autumn 2022, the commission stocked 2-inch crappie fingerlings.
Right now, anglers must release every bass and crappie they catch, but they can keep bream and catfish. Chris Racey, the Game and Fish Commission's chief of staff, and Ben Batten, the commission's deputy director, recently fished Lake Poinsett. Both formerly served as fisheries chief. They are avid anglers. They travel, and they share their experiences, with some prodding, with a certain newspaper writer. They caught about five bass, but they caught more than 100 bream.
Pruitt and I arrived late in the afternoon when the heat ebbed. For the record, it is faster for anglers in Central Arkansas to take the northern route through Bald Knob and Waldenburg than to come through Wynne or Forrest City.
We launched Pruitt's boat and idled to the middle looking for a good place to start. It all looked good, but anglers were either fishing in or near my preferred choices. I instructed Pruitt to follow the wind a deep cove on the opposite side of the lake. Within minutes, we were in a wonderland of flooded brush and small trees. The water depth was varied, with steep gradients in places.
A big problem was immediately apparent. Carpeting the coves are thick mats of dense grass that attach enthusiastically to a hook. Pruitt described it as fishing in a big pot of angel hair pasta.
While the grass made for difficult fishing, it fosters an immense food chain. Vast clouds of minnows swirled over every grass mat we found. Bass lurked in the grass, and they burst through the surface to maul the baitfish.
They only did it when the wind blew, though. There was no action when the water was calm, but as soon as wind rippled the water, the surface exploded across the cove from bass hitting bait on the surface.
"No wind, no fish," Pruitt observed. This revelation surprised Racey during a Wednesday recap.
Grass freaks me out. I hate fishing it. Kevin Short, a professional bass angler from Mayflower, has given me several grass fishing clinics over the years, and Tyrone Phillips has freely given his insight. You can use a heavy jig to punch through grass or you can finesse fish by dropping small jigs or soft plastic baits through holes in the grass. You can't do either of those things in this grass. An even better description than angel hair pasta is snarled fishing line in a backlash. No jig will punch through it, and there are no holes. Everything I threw snagged in the grass. The only way to avoid it was to throw a topwater lure.
Pruitt's favorite is a Lucky Craft G Splash 80 Popper, a discontinued lure that Pruitt got on clearance. It was a fine choice. Largemouth bass savaged that lure.
Every bass was only about a pound and a half, but they were the strongest, thickest, most muscular fish of that size I have seen.
Bass ignored my clear Zara Puppy, but they responded favorably to a Ribbit plastic frog. It is a soft plastic topwater lure with a notched back that conceals the hook point. The problem with that lure is that bass grabbed it and carried it into the grass. This made it very difficult to set the hook. I got many strikes, but I did not land a fish. I did, however, pull up many pounds of grass.
Here is the anatomy of a Lake Poinsett Ribbit grass strike. A bass smashed the frog and took it down. It takes a lot of force to drive the point up from the back of a Ribbit plastic frog and expose it so it will hook a fish. I felt the hook contact a fish lodged in the grass. I felt the hook leave the fish's mouth and grab about 3 pounds of salad.
Pruitt, meanwhile, even caught and landed fish on his 6-weight fly rod using popping bugs. It was the feat of a master angler.
At sunset, the wind died. The water turned glass calm, and the bass retired to their easy chairs for the night. I trolled to a riprap point for a few final casts. Pruitt let me use his Lucky Craft popper, which I nearly lost. It was really something to see. I reared back and snapped my shoulders forward in a mighty lunge. The line broke with a resounding crack. Pruitt and I watched the lure rocket skyward toward its destiny with eternity. It was like an epic slice with a driver off the tee when the ball veers towards the woods and continues climbing over the trees until it disappears from flight. Run, Sasha RUN! Be FREE!
Fortunately, we saw it splash down. I trolled over and retrieved it before a bass took it home to its trophy case.
I cast the popper in the direction of sunset. A bass, cut from the same cookie cutter as the other 16 that Pruitt caught, mauled the lure and took it into the grass. I slowly trolled over to it and lifted it straight up, removed the hook, and released it.
That was a great day at a great lake. Imagine how good it will be in two more years.