It’s a terrible thing when you have a one-track mind, as so many fishermen do. Here I was in northwest Arkansas and all I could think about was hybrid stripers on Beaver Lake.
Surrounded as I was by such attractions as the Ozark Mountain Hoe-Down, Bubba’s Pit Barbecue and a water slide that rivaled Niagara Falls, I stuck to the purpose that brought me to this community of 2,278 people just south of the Missouri state line and merely an echo of corny music away from Branson, Mo.
The lake is a beauty, big enough with 483 miles of shoreline and about 31,700 acres of surface to act as a colossal swimming pool for small-mouth bass, white bass, crappie, catfish and, in early spring, stripers.
“With the stripers, we really have a year-round fishery,” guide Joe Farkas said.
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And wherever we live, isn’t that what all anglers want, to be able to ignore the season and fish at will?
On a sunny day, three of us set out in Farkas’ 22-foot boat to fish between 88 and 120 feet of water with gizzard shad for bait using 20-pound test. In an area that had been shocked by a cold spell only recently, Farkas was likely an anomaly in wishing for more clouds. He worried over the stripers spurning us because of the brightness quotient.
Farkas, Tim Snell, a Nature Conservancy state official, and I trolled with eight rods hoping to find a 25-pound striper, as one of Farkas’ recent clients had. Farkas, a 17-year Beaver Lake guide relocated from Flint, Mich., perked up after spotting a large striper breaking the surface.
“He was jumping around,” Farkas said. “He was eating, but not near our bait, I guess. When they bite, they bury [the hook]. We have fish around us.”
Because the Arkansas Game
&
Fish Commission stocks 200,000 fish a year in Beaver Lake, according to Farkas, there should have been fish all around us.
Yes, Beaver Lake has plenty of fish, and if the name rings a bell to Chicagoans, it is because of its status as the site of the first BASS fishing tournament in 1967.
It was here that Ray Scott introduced the world to an event that spawned everything from Bassmaster magazine to the Bassmaster Classic.
“There were no tournaments in those days,” Scott, 73, said in a recent phone interview from his home in Pintlala, Ala. “It took me a month to gather 100 people. God told me to come there. I read an article in Outdoor Life and that set me on fire. I had this brainstorm.
“We do [competition] for baseball, football, golf and horseshoes to see who’s the best. I knew we would make it. I didn’t know how long it would take. But I didn’t have a doubt in the world. Beaver Lake definitely has a real special place in my heart. You don’t forget certain things.”
Still, we weren’t about to bump into Scott on the lake on our fishing day. He said he hasn’t fished it in 20 years. But only the day before, Farkas said, about 200 boats participated in a bass tournament on Beaver Lake, so it is still productive for Scott’s favorite species.
Farkas is a hybrid fiend, though, spending 200 days a year on this water. His clientele is mostly from a 200-mile radius, but Beaver Lake seems a good destination for Chicagoans who can travel the 600 miles or so and want to fish earlier or later than Northern Illinois weather encourages.
Two days earlier a fisherman on Farkas’ boat reeled in a 25-pounder. There are 30-pound males in the lake, he said. Maybe all of the recent activity intimidated the fish into staying out of sight. Or maybe the weather was just too nice, but either way hybrids were scarce for us.
“I’m not seeing any break the surface,” Farkas said. “I’m not seeing many on the [fish finder] either. It sure is dead flat out there.”
Abruptly, it was not. One rod bent.
“I got ’em,” Farkas yelled. “Oh, I lost him.”
He instructed the fish to bite again and obligingly it did.
“I don’t think he’s a monster, but we’ll take him right now,” Farkas said.
A school of stripers passed and Snell had a good strike. He reeled and worked it and raised it.
“That’s really healthy,” Snell said of the 25-inch, 5-pound fish.
“That actually is a good eater,” Farkas said.
We had a pleasant fishing morning with a minimal number of fish. Farkas figured the shadow of the boat and our movements in the bright sunshine scared off most prospects.
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“Hybrid stripers are the toughest fish to catch on the lake,” he said. “And we proved it.”
Now it was time for Bubba’s.
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