Week of Bass Fun

Last week's travels landed me in Fort Smith, Arkansas, which was the jumping off point for fishing trips to Arkansas' Lake Ouachita, an Oklahoma stretch of the Arkansas River and Lake Tenkiller. My company's office is also in Fort Smith, so I slipped in an office visit between fishing days.

At Ouachita we spent a bit of time crappie fishing because of some photos I'd hoped to get. The crappie bite wasn't really happening, though. So we mostly fished for bass, and that was fun. I hadn't done a lot of dedicated bass fishing for a while.

At Ouachita, the fish were looking up, so we caught quite a few spots and largemouths on Spooks and other surface lures. When they wouldn't come up, we went down after them with dropshots, C.C. Spoons and live crawfish, with the of those being a locally popular and extremely effective approach during the fall.

The Arkansas River fishing was all up tributaries and all about cranking. We tried a bit of spinnerbait fishing and a little topwater, but crankbaits were the ticket. Our top producer was a Bandit prototype that I can't show a photo of... Yet!

Tenkiller, which is deep, clear and rocky, offered a nice blend of topwater fishing and cranking opportunities with Bandits and Normans, with a nice mix of smallmouths adding to the fun. I had a big time for a while throwing a small BOOYAH Boss Pop, which is probably my single favorite topwater lure.

Next stop is Santee Cooper, where it'll be back to mixed-species fun!