ArkansasStripers.com

Arkansas Striped Bass Fishing

Ben's Lake Ouachita Striped Bass Guide Rates l Lake Ouachita Information

When is the last time you had 200 yards of line stripped off your reel........
When is the last time you had your 7 inch lure knocked 3 feet into the air........
When is the last time you fought a fish for 30 minutes before netting...............
When is the last time you used 12 inch bait fish.......
When is the last time you caught a single fish in excess of 40lbs......

WELL you haven't been Striped Bass Fishing in Arkansas lately have you..

Until you have cast a top water plug into stripers in a surface feeding .... tail spacking frenzy .... you, my friend, have not fished.

Arkansas Striper Fishing can become addictive and require a change in your lifestyle.

! Striped Bass ! There just isn't a tougher fighting fish in fresh water. Striper Fishing in fresh water lakes is the fastest growing segment of sport fishing.

The Stripers have arrived: They are Big, Mean, Powerful and Beautiful. Possessed with stealth-like elusiveness.

When a Big Striped Bass explodes on a surface bait, it's comparable only to the unexpected fall of a concrete block into a swimming pool from several stories above with your line attached!

No fish ever abused a lure or fisherman like "OLE Linesides"

"Hold on they are capable of taking a rod away from an unsuspecting angler."

Often they will start a thrashing, rolling, twisting, shaking, and diving surface show that is simply indescribable, there's no reeling at this point.

The sound of your drag screaming will snap you back to reality when the Striper takes off in a straight run from 30 to 60 yards. Your tackle gets a trial like its never had. As you wrestle these underwater warriors, your mind flashes back, "How good is my knot", "How can the line take this kind of pressure", you hope and pray they are right. It seems that at any moment something will break. There's few moments of confidence in your tackle as it strains to its limits.

Striped Bass transmit their awesome strength straight into your arms, which will be dead tired by the time you wear these whales down. Stripers have very hard mouths so you can never assume they are well hooked. Constant line pressure is a must. Stripers seldom jump, so you usually won't see them. You will see the gigantic boils and ask yourself, "Is that on my line" until they roll exhaustively next to the boat.

Then the question pops into your mind, "Is the dip net big enough?"

By the time you boat your fish, you will be sweating and shaking, and your heart will be pounding from adrenal over-load. Your arms will be tired and your reeling hand cramped. It takes this kind of effort to conquer 50 pounds of hyper-active striper.

You will be awed that you've just won one hell of a Striper fight and:
Created a memory of a life time.

Striper Fishing to me is more akin to hunting than fishing. Stripers are always on the move, you're always looking --- looking for the unmistakable sprays of water that stripers send skyward when they are feeding on the surface.

Looking for the telltale arches on the fish locator that show schools of fish below. Searching the water with field glasses looking for the sprays or circling birds feeding on destroyed shad.

Using your ears to listen for the tail spacking sounds of breaking schools of stripers.

Striped Bass Fishing in Arkansas is relatively new. Like many other worthwhile discoveries, finding that stripers were adaptable to fresh water was an accident. About 40 years ago spawning stripers had migrated upstream in the Santee-Cooper Rivers in South Carolina from the Atlantic. A reservoir was under construction and the dam was partially completed before they could return to the ocean. The land-locked stripers soon adapted to their fresh water impoundment and prospered. It took a few years for people in the area to realize what had happened, but it started the trend of stocking stripers in fresh water reservoirs and lakes.

(See Striped Bass History)

All across the nation game and fish commissions are stocking reservoirs with Striped Bass. Fisherman are discovering that stripers are an exciting fish, especially when they reach the 20 pound weight range. This interest has caused further demand for striper introduction. It takes a 3" striper fingerling living in the right habitat about 8 years worth of serious eating to grow to the 20 pound mark. Stripers do not reproduce in most lakes or reservoirs and therefore must be stocked. Striper eggs, spawning, and fry all require a steady flow of fresh water, and it must be a steady current flowing over several miles.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission operates one of the top Striped Bass hatchery systems with the best biologist in the nation and the Federal Fisheries Division maintains the only captive spawning population of Gulf Coast striped bass in the world at their Arkansas Mammoth Springs Fish Hatchery.

The AGFC is able to keep the lakes in Arkansas well stocked not only with stripers, but with all other species of game fish as well.

Armed with the proper Striped Bass lures, tackle, and know-how, such experiences and trophy fish can be more than a dream for Arkansas Anglers. Catching big striped bass, however, can be hard work. When using artificial lures, dedication and hundreds of casts are required, but one monster Arkansas Striper is worth all the effort!

I hope you find these pages of value for the purpose of learning how, when, and where to catch Striped Bass in Arkansas. The information here is what I have gathered from experience and observations on the water, guiding, researching books, websites, the biologist of the AGFC and fishing with different striper guides across Arkansas. I hope you will visit here often. Use it as a guide in helping you to locate and catch more striped bass in Arkansas, and as a means of sharing fishing reports and other related information with other Striper fishermen.