Fishing report
Lake Ouachita
Todd Gadberry, Mountain Harbor Resort harbor master, said black bass are good. The topwater bite is picking up, and spotted bass are schooled up chasing baitfish.
Try a small 3/8-ounce spoon in submerged schools and your favorite topwater in those same areas. Major creek mouths and up the rivers have had the best reports.
Walleye are good. Spoons and bottom bouncers with small spinners tipped with a crawler are working best.
Stripers are still fair to good. These fish are being caught on live bait on the east part of the lake.
Bream are still good with crickets or worms in 15-25 feet of water.
Crappie are slow. Try a small jig or minnow near brush in 15-25 feet of water.
Catfish are good and being caught with trotlines and jugs. Cut bait and live bait are working best.
The water ranges from 76-80 degrees, and the lake is clearing at 580.52 msl.
DeGray Lake
Capt. Darryl Morris of Family Fishing Trips Guide Service said cooler water temps are bringing crappie into the brushpiles more and more each day, and this rain should help even more. Target brushpiles in 18-25 feet of water where you can drown a minnow, or wet a jig 14-18 feet deep.
Lake Catherine
Shane Goodner, owner of Catch’em All Guide Service, reports that water temperature below the dam is 65 degrees with clearing conditions in the tailrace. Lake Ouachita is now out of flood pool, which has enabled Entergy to greatly reduce flow from all area dams. Entergy now is running a much safer flow below Carpenter Dam and lake conditions are returning to normal.
Rainbow trout fishing will return in mid-November when the AGFC stocking program begins again for the winter.
Trout are normally in Lake Catherine the week before the Thanksgiving holiday. The beginning of fall finds white bass and hybrid bass still living in the tailrace and feeding on shad. Boaters trolling shallow-running crankbaits that imitate minnows or crawfish have caught these fish in decent numbers this week. Size ranges from 1 to 2 pounds with some hybrid catches over 4 pounds. Topwater action has been observed in the early morning below the bridge.
Walleye still remain in the tailrace and have been caught on minnows tight-lined in deep water.
A few catfish have been taken on stink baits around rock structure close to the dam.
No striper activity has been reported so far, but these predator fish migrate in and out of the area frequently.
Lake Hamilton
Greeson Marine reports that bass are attacking crawfish imitations this week. There are three main ways that we have been going after bass with crawfish imitations: black-and-blue football head jigs with black or blue Z Craws or Bandito Bug Trailers dragged through brush in 15-22 feet of water, dropshot-rigging a craw like plastic and dragging/shaking it on rocky steep main lake points, or vertical dropping a small Gitzit (tube) in green pumpkin or watermelon seed over brush and vertical structure like dock piers in 15-25 feet of water.
There are so many different ways to approach bass right now. You can hit them at all angles and sometimes you have to show a presentation a different way. These are just our suggestions so improvise and fish to your strong points.
Crappie are showing signs of a winter/late fall pattern a little early. Crappie are suspending over brushtops in 25 feet or so of water and near current. Most of us have not pressed the issue with crappie yet and are waiting a bit longer, but if we were to a jig or vertical a live minnow, allowed it to free fall slow, it can prompt on-the-drop strikes like the bass are doing. It is a good time to try out a small spoon or crankbait, too.
Catfish are still good in all areas on cheese and cut bait in 20 feet of water near current. We haven’t seen the signs of hybrids and stripers yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they move up the river channel to the tailrace of Blakeley Dam.