First-time stripers: Hard-fighting fish show up for Saturday showdown | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (2024)

STORY -- Sunrise over the water is an exhibition anywhere, but Lake Ouachita does morning better than most.

Dr. Bobby McGehee, dean of graduate studies at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, makes it a daily ritual to honor his passion for striper fishing.

Striped bass, an introduced species in lakes Ouachita, Hamilton and Beaver, represents one of the most exciting fishing experiences available in Arkansas. McGehee is so fond of them that he is in the process of welding a metal striped bass monument in the shop of his house in Montgomery County. It's about 10 feet long and is constructed of sections that look like oversize scales to give it an articulated appearance.

McGehee transposed a photograph of a striped bass onto a large paper that he reduced to grids. He cut his sections to scale and welded them onto a frame using newly acquired skills he learned from a welding school. A stem welded to the frame keel rises through the striper's head so that he can adorn it with seasonal headware, like Christmas caps and such.

When he completes the sculpture, McGehee plans to install it next to his driveway.

I last fished with McGehee and my son Matthew eight years ago. Our guest for a trip on July 13 was Kathy Wirzfeld of Little Rock. She has wade fished on the Buffalo River and float fished on the Caddo River, but she had not experienced a proper lake fishing trip.

The first requirement for a trip with McGehee might be the most difficult. You have to be up and ready to go before dawn.

"It's pretty much 'wheels up' at 5:30," McGehee said.

If you're late, he won't wait.

The air was amazingly cool when we launched McGehee's Sea Hunt boat at Lena Landing Recreation Area. The usually good-natured McGehee was still a trifle sore over having to replace his Yamaha outboard after an internal malfunction tore apart the motor's core components. He replaced it with a Suzuki that was only a few hours from the end of its break-in period. McGehee, a stickler for detail and order, varied his speeds all the way out to an area near Points 5, 6 and 7 that he calls "The Flats."

"You're not supposed to run it at the same speed for more than two minutes at a time," McGehee said.

With the rising sun blazing over the mountains to the east, he ran mid throttle for two minutes, full throttle for two minutes and down throttle for two minutes on the way to McGehee's hunting grounds.

Hunting is an apt description because McGehee compares striper fishing to deer hunting. He watches his Lowrance electronic graph for sonar returns that reveal a striped bass's presence. The returns appear as arches on the display. Yellow represents an echo from the most dense surface. Red is less dense. Purple is less dense than red, and blue is the least dense. An isolated arch could be any kind of fish. An arch, or better, multiple arches under a red cloud is almost assuredly a striper. The cloud is a school of shad. Stripers swim below baitfish and feed when the urge strikes.

McGehee was delighted to explain all this to Wirzfeld, an enthusiastic pupil immersing in a heretofore unknown culture.

Once on station at The Flats, McGehee deployed his anti-striper armament. On both sides of his high-freeboard Sea Hunt boat are two large downriggers, small cranes that each hold a large weight with wings.

McGehee uses Shakespeare heavy action rods and Penn levelwind reels with line counters. On the terminal end he used white horsehead jigs with chartreuse deer hair and a long, chartreuse plastic worm type trailer.

McGehee clipped the fishing line to the downrigger cable and lowered the downrigger weights to run about 28 feet deep. This was just above the thermocline, an abrupt delineation where warm water meets cold water. Stripers like to loaf in the cold water just below the thermocline. The jigs trail the cable at the prescribed depth.

With the downriggers set, McGehee trolled at about 2 miles per hour in a tight meandering pattern. Stripers might follow a bait for a distance, but they often strike when a lure changes course. When a striper hits the jig, it disconnects the clip from the downrigger cable, allowing an angler to play the fish freely.

The downrigger cables emit a high-pitched whine as they slice through the water. That, combined with the gentle rocking of the boat, promotes drowsiness.

McGehee marked some fish on The Flats, but after a long time with no takers, he relocated to an area next to Brady Mountain Recreation Area. A lot of stripers were there, as were a lot of anglers, but only one caught a fish. Through binoculars, it appeared to be about 12-15 pounds. Radio traffic among the other anglers revealed that stripers were moving fast following shad.

With the fishing slow at Brady, McGehee opted to return to The Flats.

We weren't there long when we got the first taker. The clip snapped off the cable and the rod bowed downward.

"Get him, Kathy, get him!" I urged.

McGehee pulled the rod from its holder and handed it to Wirzfeld. The look on her face as she fought the fish is why experienced anglers love to share it with newcomers. It was a grin of pure exhilaration.

The fish weighed 10 pounds, 8 ounces. The next one hit shortly after we released the first one, and it weighed 12 pounds.

A long lull followed, but the action resumed with a double. Wirzfeld landed one fish that weighed 9 pounds, and I landed a 7-pounder. We released all four fish, and they all survived.

By then, the morning breeze had died. The lake was glass slick, and the pleasure boaters began to emerge from the marinas to take advantage of the splendid boating conditions.

For us, the crowning touch was a fabulous breakfast at Shangri-La Resort. With its 1950s fishing camp vibe and all of the taxidermied stripers and largemouth bass on the walls, it epitomizes all that is good about Lake Ouachita.