Anyone ever smallmouth fish in Arkansas?

That fire tiger is

Camp Ozark is just down the road from Caddo and Cossatot River. You could do a day float on Caddo without a guide and do fine. If you don’t mind driving, Kings river is great spot. I’ve caught tons on the Buffalo River on day floats. I always just use plastic spinner jigs.

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I fish Norfork and Bull Shoals

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Biggest small mouth I've ever seen in person was on Bull Shoals. My family had a lake house on Norfork and I fished both of these lakes a lot between 1995-1999.

Anyway, a buddy and I were pre-fishing Bull Shoals for a tournament that started the next day. First fish of the day in the very back of a pocket I pull out a 5 lbs largemouth. We catch a couple of more and I'm trolling around a floating dock that ran way out over deep water. My buddy in the back has a pearl white fluke on and is basically trolling it while he smoked a cig killing time getting around the dock. He sets the hook and pulls up a smallie that was every bit of 4 lbs and pushing towards 5.

Best part of the story...

We thought we were going to crush as the tournament was a hourly weigh in pay out type deal where you listen to radio and decide what hour to bring a good one in. We replicated what we did all day, shallow back pockets for largemouth and fish deep around floating docks for smallies and only managed to catch 3 small dinks.

Nonetheless, the day before was the biggest smallie I've ever personally seen.

ETA: The small mouth was respectable, but a 5 pound largemouth is big up there. I think 3.5 lbs won overall big bass on tournament day.

I've floated the Ouachita from Pencil Bluff to Camp Ozark many times. Plenty of good Smallmouth in that stretch. If you are going in the summer the river will be low and you will likely have to drag across some places but the fish may be more congregated.

yes. i caught one smally. it wasn't nearly as fun as fishing large mouth. but, those frickers put up a fight.

beaver lake

If you are wanting to catch Smallmouth in a Lake I would give Del Colvin a call he fishes out of Bull Shoals Lake Boat Dock if you are willing to travel that far from Hot Springs. I would also suggest coming early April, but I know that doesn't line with Camp Ozark stay. That being said with some of the things I've seen on social media this week might need to go to Texas to catch smallies!

Should be able to help you there if still operating.

Caught some using wooly boogers on fly rod on the Buffalo river

Any of the rivers there will have plenty of smallmouth in them...Caddo, Cossatot, and Ouachita..

We have about a mile and quarter of frontage on the Cossatot south of DeQueen around Lockesburg and we’ve caught smallmouth as far south as that. Though, generally the cutoff for smallmouth was the D&E railroad bridge. North of that, you catch smallmouth. South of that we would catch only largemouth and spots. We used to tear them up in the Little Missouri.

Smallmouth fishing on a small river is the sport of kings. Nothing fights harder or is more fun.