Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Fishing in Arkansas went 21st century several decades ago with the advent of modern tournament fishing and the venues that the sport mandated. Now most of the more popular lakes are inundated with state-of-the-art fiberglass bass-fishing rockets filled with weekend warriors wanting to be national angling heroes.

But if that style of fishing isn't to your liking, or you just like truly getting away from it all sometimes, oxbow fishing in Arkansas might be more your speed. No other venue gives you more breathtaking scenery and more legitimate chances to catch bass over 5 pounds in May than the many oxbow lakes in Eastern Arkansas.

Oxbow fishing compares to river fishing in many ways, but has all the benefits of slack-water reservoir fishing as well. For the diehard angler, the return to what once was a simpler way of doing things is never more evident than when you're crawling a gurgling buzzbait through cypress knees with the anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve.

Numerous oxbows along the Mississippi, Arkansas and Lower White rivers provide fast action in May. Two such oxbows will be found along the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers on the eastern side of the state.

HORSESHOE LAKE
Located near the town of Hughes in Crittenden County, Horseshoe Lake provides anglers a return to the bass fishing of yesteryear. Though it is now landlocked, this lake was formed when a backwater area of the Mississippi River was cut off by the formation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' levee system. Now the backwater lake depends solely on the current water table and rainfall in the area.

According to Arkansas fisheries biologist Jeff Farwick, forage -- primarily sunfish along with gizzard and threadfin shad -- abounds in the oxbow.

The water here is largely muddy, with an average depth of 5 feet and maximum depth of just over 25 feet for most of the year. Cypress trees, lily pads and stationary wooden docks litter the small lake, presenting anglers with multiple options for shallow water fishing.

Charlie Croom Jr. and his father, Charles Sr., have been fishing the lake for over 20 years and literally know every knot on every log and cypress tree in the lake. The younger Croom has caught fish over 8 pounds, and lost fish even bigger. His best five-fish stringer in May was 28 pounds, a catch made with the help of a tandem blade Terminator spinnerbait in chartreuse and white color.

So how should you go about fishing for Horseshoe's bass this month? "Look for shad working around the cypress trees," Croom said. The lake holds an abundance of cypress trees, and finding baitfish will help eliminate unproductive trees from the search. And his top lure for catching bass near the around the cypress trees is a spinnerbait. "You can feel the shad pecking at the willow-leaf blade during the retrieve," he said. "That's the reason you should stay on the tree for a long while."

Croom suggests that anglers find the more isolated cypress trees to narrow down the search still more. In most cases after the spawn, the larger fish will take up residence on a lone cypress tree rather than a cluster of trees.

Besides a spinnerbait, he'll also fish a buzzbait or a chugging topwater lure around the cypress trees. When the spinnerbait and topwater bite slows, he generally reaches to his soft plastics. While Croom likes to fish tubes, Zoom Flukes, and worms his favorite bait is a Mann's Jelly Worm impaled on a 3/0 hook and fished with a 1/8-ounce sinker.

If the bass are in the lily-pad fields, Croom will start out working the edges with buzzbait or topwater bait like a Smithwick Devil's Horse. Then he'll migrate to the inside pads, looking for more aggressive fish. As the day wears on, he often switches to a tube or a soft-plastic jerkbait to trigger bites from more reluctant fish.

The lake can be easily accessed by way of Interstate 40; then, head south on Highway 147. There are two private pay ramps (the lake is on privately land), one on a country road two miles south of Thompson Grove, the other just off Highway 147. The lake does not have a length limit, but the daily creel limit is 10 bass per angler. More information about the lake can be obtained by calling the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission at 1-800-364-4263.