Arkansas is the two-story state: clear Ozark reservoirs (Ouachita, Greers Ferry, Bull Shoals) with stripers, hybrids and giant walleye on top, and below their dams, the coldwater crown jewels: the White and Little Red tailwaters, home of world-record-class brown trout.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
Arkansas' island wilderness lake: 40,000 clear acres, no shoreline development, stripers and giant walleye.
The Little Red River's deep, clear reservoir: hybrids, walleye runs and a world-record tailwater below.
Deep, clear and quiet: Bull Shoals hides 45,000 acres of Ozark bass water behind one of the South’s great trout tailwaters.
The brown trout river of the South: 100 tailwater miles below Bull Shoals where 20-pounders are a documented reality.
The first White River lake: striper mornings, spotted bass depths and Ozark clarity near Bentonville.
Arkansas' two-story sleeper: stripers and walleye over cold depths, trout in the tailwater below.
The resort lake that fishes: hybrids at dawn, clear-water bass and an underrated crappie bite.
Home of the once-world-record brown: a cold Arkansas tailwater where 30-pound genetics still swim the sowbug flats below Greers Ferry Dam.
Hot Springs' front porch: a resort lake with a serious striper program, bream beds under every dock and the Ouachita River's tailwater current.
Arkansas' swamp giant: 29,000 acres of flooded timber and oxbow character, where big bass and slab crappie live among the cypress.
The Little Missouri's clear pool: Ouachita-mountain water of walleye springs, striped nights and a trout tailwater below the dam.
The Fourche Valley's crappie house: Nimrod's flooded timber stains rich and stacks slabs the old Arkansas way.
The Arkansas River’s showcase pool: Dardanelle’s backwaters host bassmasters, hush-mouthed crappie holes and barge-lane stripers.
The Mississippi’s abandoned bend: Chicot is Arkansas’s largest natural lake, a 20-mile oxbow full of crappie and bream.
Arkansas’ game-and-fish original: Lake Conway is the largest commission-built lake in America, full of crappie.
America’s first national river: the Buffalo runs smallmouth and bluffs through the Arkansas Ozarks.
Mammoth Spring’s river: the Spring runs cold trout water year-round through northern Arkansas.
Arkansas’ whitewater river: the Mulberry runs smallmouth through Ozark National Forest bluffs.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: March.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Ouachita | Reservoir | Garland | modeled | Mar |
| Greers Ferry Lake | Reservoir | Cleburne | USGS | Mar |
| Bull Shoals Lake | Reservoir | Boone | USGS | Mar |
| White River | River | Desha | modeled | Apr |
| Beaver Lake | Reservoir | Washington | USGS | Mar |
| Norfork Lake | Reservoir | Baxter | USGS | Mar |
| DeGray Lake | Reservoir | Clark | USGS | Mar |
| Little Red River | River | Cleburne | USGS | Apr |
| Lake Hamilton | Reservoir | Garland | modeled | Mar |
| Millwood Lake | Reservoir | Little River | modeled | Mar |
| Lake Greeson | Reservoir | Pike | modeled | Mar |
| Nimrod Lake | Reservoir | Yell | modeled | Mar |
| Lake Dardanelle | Reservoir | Pope | modeled | Mar |
| Lake Chicot | Lake | Chicot | modeled | Mar |
| Lake Conway | Lake | Faulkner | modeled | Mar |
| Buffalo River | River | Searcy | USGS | May |
| Spring River | River | Lawrence | USGS | Apr |
| Mulberry River | River | Franklin | USGS | May |
Arkansas packs four distinct fisheries into one license: the White and Little Red tailwaters (world-record brown trout water flowing through Ozark valleys), the clear highland reservoirs (Ouachita, Greers Ferry, Bull Shoals) with their stripers and walleye, the lowland oxbows and bayous where largemouth live under cypress, and the Arkansas River system's blue cats and crappie. Few states offer trophy trout and flooded-timber bass within the same tank of gas.
Winter: the trophy season: high-water browns on the White, Ouachita's stripers schooled deep. March: walleye run the river arms of Greers Ferry. Spring: crappie and bass go shallow everywhere: the oxbows are electric. Summer: night stripers, tailwater trout at dawn, catfish always. Fall: streamer fishing arrives and the reservoirs' topwater returns with the shad migrations.
Deep Ozark reservoirs release cold, fertile water year-round: rivers in the South that behave like Montana, stocked heavily and patrolled by browns that grow past 30 inches.