Im back from my trip.

[CarpPoop]

First off a ton of thanks goes to fishingpox (Rusty) and CEB (Chris) for their help prior to my 5 day trip to east Arkansas. I used all of their information and it made for a much smoother trip. So thank you guys! As for the trip itself it went as follows:

Day 1: Lake Austell. For a lake with only 85 acres this lake has so much structure you could fish it a week before coming close to covering it. We did not catch alot of fish here but we did catch 12 nice ones with the largest being 14.5 inches. Caught alot of small bass by accident along the way to keep it interesting. The wind blew pretty hard and really caused us alot of grief. We only saw 2 other boats and they were bass fishing.

Day 2: Midway. I liked Midway. Again, we only caught 12 fish but every one of them ran between 13 and 15 inches long. We caught by far the bigger fish of the trip on average at Midway. It needs water. Eds is closed so we got in down at Mr. Fowlers. We caught all of our fish trolling or casting jigs. We tried to get up around the cypress but it was just too shallow and the wind was blowing pretty hard. It was just easier to pull those jigs out in open water. One word about midway. That gravel road back to the lake shook 2bolts out of the side boards on my trailer and it also shook off my license plate! We had to use the strap off my thermos to keep the side board from falling off after that! So that was interesting and if anyone finds an Illinois trailor plate its mine.

Day 3: Bear Creek. I loved this lake. Everyone told us to fish 2 feet deep and that they had been killing them there all week. Well we caught 1 fish fishing 2 feet so we backed out and caught about 20 fishing 5 feet deep over the ends of the lay downs with minnows. There are about 1000 of these trees in the water here and alot of stuff in addition to that i saw on the graph. Larger fish here ran about 13 inches with most around 11 to 11.5. This is a beautiful and peaceful lake.

Day 4. Old Town/Storm Creek. The wind started blowing early and we just could not function on Old Town very well. I was stupid and forgot an anchor in which I could have really used in order to hold while fishing the cypress. We only caught 2 little fish and decided to go somewhere else to escape the wind. Old Town is a remarkable looking place though. It looks like Reelfoot in Tennessee. We pulled out and went over to Storm Creek where we had a good time. We caught about 15 crappie trolling some flats in the far end of the long neck there trolling two 1/16th ounce sassy shads which got down to about 9 feet. We got into some hybrid stripers at dusk to cap the day. The crappie here were about like Bear Creek...11 to 13 inches.

Day 5. Whitehall/Bear Creek. Whitehall was a loss. Shouldnt have gone in hindsight. The wind was blowing hard right down the lake and it was very hard to fish. We managed 2 good fish about 12.5 inches each in 12 inches of water and had some sort of carp about decapitate my partner when it decided to try and jump over the boat when we were running. The man there at the launch did have a socket set though so he let us fix our wounded trailer from the Midway trip. Another fellow there had 7 total and he said he fishes it alot and it just wasnt right yet. So we decided to pull out at 1 and head over to Bear Creek again and try the same trolling method we used at Storm Creek. It worked. We found fish suspended at 10 feet in anywhere from 12 to 20 feet of water in the middle of the necks. We got 17 total with the largest 13.5 inches.

Today we drove home. It went so fast im depressed. We had a great time fishing all that water though. Some of it was good....some of it wasnt...but all of it in another week or with another set of fishermen i am sure is quality water. Again thanks for those who helped!

[L.A. stumpjumper]

Sounds like a good trip in all. Glad you caught fish

[ceb]

Carp -

You sure are right about that gravel road. It'll shake the teeth out of your head. I don't think I've ever lost anything, though. LOL. Sorry the fishing wasn't better. I guess I was wrong about the river getting into Midway before your trip. It would have looked a lot different and fished a lot better if it was at normal levels. I'm glad you had a good trip. It should provide you with some good memories. If you ever make it down to LR, give me a shout.

[CarpPoop]

I sure will. Have you found any good fishing holes near Little Rock yet?

[ceb]

I really like the Little Maumelle river. It is perfect for my style of fishing. I'm mostly a muddy water, one pole jigger. Gooch is also going to teach me about fishing clear water lakes like Lake Maumelle and Ouachita. I've got a lot to learn.

[fishingpox]

I'm glad you had a good trip. Arkansas appreciates you taking advantage of its resources. Yeah, we need some rain bad here in this area. I went to Horseshoe last weekend and it looks like the water is down there about 40 inches or better. With the wind promised to blow 15 to 20 with 30 mph gusts, I'm still trying to figure out where to go this weekend. I hope you took plenty of pictures. I guess next week you have to get back to teaching the youngons. I'm glad to have been a help to you, maybe next time it will be more productive. Like CEB says, when the water is right in Midway, you can catch some hogs there.

[spikles2]

First off, I am glad you had a great time. We are heading to Storm Creek next weekend. I told my wife I am going to build the second house on that lake. The fishing is so diverse. That place has soooooooo many crappie and catfish in it. Absolutely beautiful. We have fished Millwood the last three weekends. The fishing has been awesome.

I am glad you enjoyed Austell. The campsites there are first class in my opinion. You actually saw two boats? I thought that was are secret! For such a productive place, it gets little pressure. You hit Bear Creek at the right time. We troll alot there and usually fill a livewell up. We troll a 1/4 oz vibric roostertail (yellow/green) at 10 feet. There are so many coves there. I will let you know how storm creek goes. PM me things that you would have done differently.

Michael