Lake Charles

— Shelly Jeffrey at Lake Charles State Park (870-878-6595) said bream were good this week on worms, crickets and jigs. Crappie are fair. Black bass are good using spinnerbaits, plastic worms and fishing the brush and around rocky points. Catfishing is good on worms, blood bait, stink bait and Catfish Pro Blood.

Looking ahead to August, Shelly says anglers should pencil in Aug. 5-11 as the best fishing days based on moon times, with good days coming Aug. 19-25. The lake remains its usual murky clarity and high. Surface water temperature Sunday morning was 79.8 degrees.

Boxhound Marina (870-670-4496) reports that water clarity is stained and the water “may be a tad low” as of Wednesday midday. Surface temperature was not recorded. The bream bite is good. Fish are being caught around the docks on redworms and crickets. The crappie bite has shutdown for a while and remained poor this week. Black bass are good early in the day and then late in the evening. Spinnerbaits and topwater lures are the go-to baits now.

Catfish are good on stink bait or chicken liver.

— Mark Crawford with springriverfliesandguides. com (870-955-8300) said water levels are at 440 cfs at the spring, 350 cfs is average flow, with FISHING REPORTS (cont.)

water still up above average but steadily dropping.

Water clarity has been good lately. Always green tinted but mostly clear. Not much rainfall in the area over the last few weeks.

The trout have been focused on bugs lately, with hare’s ears and prince nymphs working great. If you see a trout rising, then try a dry fly. Some dry fly action can be had lately during evening hatches.

Caddis and mayfly hatches have been heavy most days when it’s sunny. On the dreary overcast days the catching has been excellent on woollys. Olive and brown are always great.

Smallmouth bass have been hitting better with water levels coming down.

Crayfish and baitfish streamers have been doing well. Clousers are always great for smallies.

Check out Mark’s blog at springriverfliesandguides.c om for the latest conditions on the Spring River.

John Berry of Berry Brothers Guide Service in Cotter (870-435-2169) said the Spring River is fishing well. This is a great place to wade fish when they are running water on the White and North Fork rivers. The canoe season is upon us.

Look out for the aluminum hatch! Be sure to wear cleated boots and carry a wading staff. There is a lot of bedrock that can get very slick. The hot flies have been olive Woolly Buggers with a bit of flash (size 10), cerise and hot pink San Juan worms (size 10) and Y2Ks (size 10).

The Army Corps of Engineers reported Thursday that the White River stage at Batesville was at 9.45 feet, more than 5 feet below the flood stage of 15.0 feet. The Newport stage was at 12.17, well below the flood stage of 26.0 feet. The stage at Augusta is steady at 24.30, more than 1.5 feet below flood stage of 26.00 feet.

Cook s Lake — The AGFC s Wil Hafner at Cook s Lake Conservation Education Center (870241-3373) said this week he had little to report from Cook s Lake. We haven’t had many anglers in the last week but they have been catching them the same way as the report states from last week. The White River has also caused the lake to rise about a foot and a half in the last week, making conditions

He said in the July 15 report that the largemouth bass bite has slowed down considerably. The best bait of choice was a 3.5-inch black and red flake tube, Texas rigged with a Ω-

ounce weight pitched into hollow cypress trees. A coleslaw-colored spinnerbait should also receive some strikes. Bluegill picked up a week ago and he expected them to only get better. Anglers should focus on laydowns near steep banks in about 3 feet of water. Crickets have been the bait of choice. A few crappie have been caught on brushpiles about 6 feet deep using white/chartreuse crappie magnets with a pink jighead.

Kent Williams of Oxbow Guide Service (870-278-7978) said there was nothing to report this week.

— Tyler Ball, park ranger at Mississippi River State Park (870-295-4040), said anglers at Bear Creek Lake report having success catching largemouth bass.

The bass have reported to be biting at depths of 8-10 feet. Anglers report having success using various artificial baits as well as live bait. At Storm Creek Lake on the southern end of the State Park, Tyler reports very little fishing activity there. We have not received any reports of fish being caught in this lake this month.

One observer at Storm Creek did report to the AGFC that a couple of small bream were caught during the middle of last week, but not much was biting for them either.