Photo by Bruce Ingram.

Smallmouth bass in Arkansas don't attain the double-digit sizes of their bucket-mouthed cousins, but it's still easy to make a convincing case for them as our sportiest game fish. After all, they're a unique combination of largemouth's greedy and evil intentions toward anything that remotely looks edible with the sleek, muscular athleticism of a saltwater fish. The result is aggressive assaults on your bait and lures and rod-straining battles punctuated by skirmishes above and below the water's surface.

As a bonus, bronzebacks tend to set up housekeeping where the water is clean and cool, so you get to pursue them in some of the Natural State's most remote and pristine areas. Smallies are most at home in creeks and rivers, and the most effective way to stalk them is from a canoe or flatbottom boat. Unfortunately, that also puts you at the mercy of Mother Nature and her capricious ways with water levels--especially at this time of year, when parts of legendary fisheries such as the Buffalo River routinely go bone-dry for weeks at a time.

However, the northeast corner of Arkansas is full of running water, including the spring-fed Spring and Eleven Point rivers, which shrug off the heat of summer with plenty of water for float-fishing. Even better, recent Arkansas Game and Fish Commission studies prove that these rivers support dense, healthy populations of smallmouths that include plenty of top-quality fish.

After crunching the numbers from countless hours of electrofishing on both rivers with fellow district biologist Sam Barkley, assistant fisheries biologist Sam Henry declares, "The statistics make them some of the fastest-growing smallmouth bass in any river system in the south."

In fact, growth rates on these streams match those of Crooked Creek, which the AGFC cites as a premier smallmouth stream. The agency's population studies revealed which parts of each river are likely to be the richest for fishermen and even include data that suggest the most productive lures and bait to use. To help you enjoy these outstanding fisheries, here's our comprehensive guide to floating and fishing the Spring and Eleven Point rivers.

SPRING RIVER OVERVIEW
The aptly named Spring River arises as a gentle creek just north of the Missouri line near Thayer, and then earns its name at Mammoth Spring in northeastern Fulton County, where Arkansas' largest spring fills it with almost 10 million gallons of 58-degree water per hour. From there, the Spring follows a southerly and southeasterly course for about 45 miles to its confluence with the Black River along the Randolph/Lawrence county line.

In the cold, upper river, trout prevail. However, farther downstream, the river goes through what Henry describes as "transition zones," where trout decline as water temperatures and the numbers of smallmouths and other coolwater and warmwater fish rise. Expect heavy recreational boat traffic on weekends and holidays from now into the fall.