If you’re hungry for a fish dinner, do yourself and Henry a favor and keep your limit of small bass from Lake Charles — he needs for anglers to thin the ranks of smaller fish, which will decrease competition for limited forage and enable more bass to grow larger.

Lake Poinsett, in Poinsett State Park near Harrisburg, is chock-full of bass in the 11- to 14-inch range, and a few are starting to look downright skinny, Henry said. Keep your limit there, too.

Lake Ashbaugh (northwestern Greene County) was renovated in 2002, and, unfortunately, a vandal apparently reintroduced yellow bass to the lake. You might want to give Ashbaugh’s largemouths, which are catch-and-release only, another year or two to grow up.

Mallard Lake carries a big-fish reputation but seems to be in the midst of changes. “Yellow bass have showed up again, and it’s as green as a gourd right now, and extremely fertile,” Henry said. Only time will tell whether the lake can handle the influx of yellow bass, which are harmless in some waters and as destructive as pollution in others.

WESTERN REGION

In District 9, Lake Dardanelle, a pool of the Arkansas River, is the major bass-fishing destination. It holds a few big bass and plenty of average-sized fish.

“Dardanelle is the best place for big fish in this district,” said fisheries biologist Frank Leone. “There’s been an upward trend in our catch per unit of effort (a measure of electrofishing success) the last three years.”

If you like heart-pounding action, Pool 9 of the Arkansas River, just downstream from Dardanelle, is your spot — for spotted bass. “There are excellent numbers of spotted bass in that pool,” Leone said. “You can go out and catch 10 to 30 spotted bass on a consistent basis. There are lots of fish in the 12-inch range.”

Seven out of every 10 bass in Pool 9 will be spotted bass, but no one will be complaining as long as these feisty fish continue to readily take lures and bait.

The Florida-strain largemouths stocked into Lake Atkins (southern Pope County) after it was renovated in 2002 “are achieving outstanding growth rates,” Leone said. “The numbers appear to be good, and we have fish that are 13 or 14 inches long in 1 1/2 years.” A new 15-inch minimum-length limit will protect most of the bass there this year.

Leone also mentioned good reports from anglers on Lake Hinkle, a 960-acre AGFC lake in southern Scott County, where the bass likely benefited from a drawdown in 2003. Low water tends to concentrate predator fish with their prey, allowing them to grow quickly.

CENTRAL ARKANSAS

“Harris Brake would be my first choice for bass,” said Carl Perrin, who began his 35th year of stewardship over the fisheries in central Arkansas’s District 10 in February. “We put 1,000 tons of lime in there during a two-year period to raise the pH, and it seems to have made a tremendous difference.”

Adding lime is just one of several improvements the AGFC instituted after forming a special citizens’ committee. Perrin noted that during the past few years, the lake went from having a low bass population with almost all big bass to high numbers of fish and a good balance of sizes.

For trophy hunters, Perrin recommended Barnett Lake in western White County. Formed from an inundated canyon, this quirky lake, Perrin said, “year in and year out produces 10-pound fish.”

Greers Ferry, like many other Corps reservoirs, benefited from high water in the spring of 2004. “Spotted bass reproduction was particularly good, and the smallmouths look good, too. The largemouths from the spawn in 2002 will be in the 12- to 15-inch range, and in good numbers,” Perrin said.

When Perrin and assistant biologist Tom Bly sampled Pool 7 of the Arkansas River last year, they found better numbers of bass, particularly in the Toadsuck and Palarm Creek areas.

Add Pulaski County fisheries biologist Clifton Jackson to the list of folks who believe that fishing on the Arkansas River will improve next year. In the Little Rock pool, he said, “there’s been a total turnaround as far as having a good base of 2-pound fish goes.”

While many tournament anglers pass through multiple locks after launching from the ramp near ALLTEL Arena in North Little Rock, Jackson recommended staying within sight of the capital city’s skyline.

“Lots of fishermen catch lots of fish in other pools, but they all come back there to weigh their fish in. Research done in other states suggests that bass don’t go very far after they’ve been released, so I might stay right around ALLTEL arena,” Jackson said with a laugh.