Bull Shoals and White River, AR

I was fortunate enough to be able to join my dad, Bob, Pete and Jim for a weekend of fishing on Bull Shoals and the White River in AR. The drive from my house to Albert Lea where everyone else was located took as long as the flight down there.

The first day Pete and Bob hit the lake for crappies and managed to catch a few nice fish despite the wind making things difficult. The rest of us went to Gaston’s to meet our guides. No more do we pull into the resort, we watch a small single engine plan take off from their grass strip and end up crashing and landing in a tree. Fortunatly no one was seriously injured and after a slight delay we hit the water. Dad and Jim hopped in one boat, and I got in the other. We worked down stream into a a cut that was loaded with fish. In short order I had caught at least 20 rainbow trout. The fish were hitting corn, marshmellows, and Gulp. I don’t think it was so much what you were using, but the fish were hitting instead as they didn’t want a different fish to get it. We this at 5 or 6 more spots down the river until it was time for shore lunch. As we got futher down river we caught more and more natural fish that had much more vibrant colors versus the stocked rainbows. After an awesome shore lunch of fresh trout, potatoes and beans we headed back out. I told my guide that I would like to try for the big browns that get caught from time to time. We started by pulling up on a shallow rocky area and with a tiny piece of Gulp on a small hook we caught Scaulpin that were hiding under the rocks to use for bait. Once we had enough we anchored above a deeper cut that the fish liked to use as a travel corridor. The guide would peel the skin off the Sculpin while rigging it. I didn’t manage any real big browns, but I got a 19" and 22" fish as well as a couple beautiful Cutthroat trout in the upper teens.

The next day my dad and I fished Bull Shoals. The water was about 6′ low, so there was no shoreline brush in the water. We started the day chasing bass. I caught a smallie about 3.5 lb and then a smaller one about 1.5 lb on a spinnerbait. I assume they were a male/female. The fish were not spawning yet, but we did see a couple cruisers in the calm waters. The bass fishing was pretty slow so we switched to crappies. We targeted brush piles placed in the lake in 5-20′. We used jigs and plastics poured by our guide Fred Rich. He is "THE MAN" when it comes to Bull Shoals. We started out slow getting one here, one there. As the day wore on we started doing better, with our best luck on the last spot we fished. For the day we kept 21 crappies with the lragest weighing 1lb 10oz. We also caught a few spotted bass in the brush.

I would suggest this trip to anyone as we had a blast. The people at the resorts, restuarants, etc were all very nice and helpful. A trip to the Ranger Boat plant in Flippin was only 15 minutes away. The walleyes were just coming off the spawn and not willing to bite, but come June/July numbers of fish from 4-10lbs are common. This will be a yearly trip for me!