Surface temps are stable, ranging 86 degrees early to 91 degrees later in the day along Little River, depending on location and the time of day. Clarity along Little River remains buddy in many locations, but also continues to improve this week with decreased river current. Normal to moderate stain is found in most locations; some areas further up Little River are heaviest stain, with river clarity ranging 5-8 inches visibility depending on location. Clarity and visibility of the oxbows will vary widely from normal stained to good visibility from 20-30 inches.
Mike provided these specifics of the fishing this week on Millwood: * The best bite of the day for largemouth bass over the past few weeks continues to be from dawn to around 9 a.m. The mouths of creeks dumping into Little River, where the thermocline resides between 10-15 feet, are holding nice groups of largemouths. Bass for the past several weeks have been active early up to 2-4 pounds on topwaters, and cloud-cover mornings continue to see the best activity starting at dawn. Feeding activity levels have slowed with the increase of surface temperature in the mid- to low-90-degree range over the past couple weeks.
Best baits drawing early morning reactions continue to be buzzbaits, soft plastic frogs, Cordell Crazy Shads, Baby Torpedoes and Chuggers fished near pads and vegetation. Buzzbait colors drawing the best reactions are black/blue, Hot Firecracker or Hot Cotton Candy. The best buzzbait bite working is along Little River depths and drops across points, and also flats near creek channel swings, with stumps and laydowns and around lily pads. Chuggers, Cordell Crazy Shads, Arbogast Jitterbugs and plastic frogs continue working in the slop — all are getting fair to good reactions in creek channels near stumps, cypress trees and near lily pads stands along Little River. Topwater activity levels drop off after 9-10 a.m. Then there is very little topwater activity until dusk.
After the topwater action diminishes, a fairly decent and random bite can be had near creek dumps into Little River with a custom painted, shad pattern, shallow-running square-bill crankbait, 2.0 & 3.0 & S-cranks and Bill Lewis Echo 1.75s by deflecting and banging/deflecting them off stumps from 8-10 feet deep in creek channels and points. Bass around 14-15 inches in length are randomly responding to crankbaits in shad and bream colors. Best color of cranks in the oxbows for the past couple weeks or so have been the Bold Bluegill, Millwood Magic and Ghost. Increasing size up to a three-quarter-ounce Rat-L-Trap, fished much slower and deeper, will draw a few random hits during late mornings in creek channels and across points converging with Little River. Best colors of Traps over the past week or so have been Millwood Magic and White Smoke.
The drawdown is pulling a lot of fish to the mouths of creeks. Working crankbaits in a stop-and-go slow retrieve will draw a better reaction than fast retrieves. The drawdown will bring the majority of largemouths to creek mouths and points meeting up with Little River in short order.
Several groups of juvenile schooling bass have been found in Horseshoe and McGuire oxbows up Little River over the past week around daybreak. Largemouths, spotted bass and white bass have been randomly schooling over the past week in various locations at dawn running river shad. Kastmaster and Cordell spoons, Rat-L-Traps and Little Georges all were catching the surface schoolers over the past week. These fish appear to be juvenile and adolescent in age distribution, ranging in size from 1-2.5 pounds each.
Schools of spots and largemouths feeding on river shad in Little River behind points and washouts will hit vertical-jigged spoons with abandon once the topwater bite subsides late in the morning. We have been using Cotton Cordell Hammered Spoons over the past couple weeks with added bucktails. Some mornings a white bucktail is best, and it seems like on cloudy mornings that a red bucktail works better. You’ll find the most aggressive feeders between Jack’s Isle and Hurricane Creek along Little River, in 10-15 foot of depth where broken timber and stumps are. Hurricane Creek had some spoon-feeding bass early one morning last week, and surface-schooling Kentucky bass and white bass were around for several days where bends of creeks contained deeper water in the 10- to 15-feet depth range.
White bass continue hitting vertical-jigged half-ounce to 1-ounce slab spoons in Little River between Jack’s Isle and first entrance into Mud Lake, and also in Hurricane Creek from 10-15 feet deep. Little River has improved clarity, and the bite over the past couple weeks and the reduced current has clarity much improved on primary or secondary points. White bass are roaming back down Little River to their summer spots in the main lake, but pausing on these points in the process, and roaming in and out of creek dumps, too. With the drawdown in effect, many whites are found in close proximity to the Kentucky (spotted bass) and largemouth bass, all feeding on threadfin shad.
Heavy three-quarter-ounce Cordell Hammered Spoons, Kastmaster chrome/blue spoons with white bucktails, or Bomber Fat Free Guppy or Fingerling crankbaits, and the Bill Lewis MR-6 Crankbaits in Citrus Shad, Tennessee Shad and Millwood Magic colors will draw reactions from white bass. Little George’s, Rocket Shads and red/white Rooster Tails continue to work.
Crappie continue to improve with water clarity improving in many locations. Locating planted brush piles in Pugh Slough, Horseshoe, Bee Lake, Millwood State Park or Saratoga continue to hold nice 12- to 15-inch crappie, and gave up some nice 2-pound slabs over the past few weeks. Minnows may work one day, jigs the next. Also try jigs tipped with a minnow, and fish these in planted brush piles at 10-16 feet of depth. Best colors for jigs over the past few weeks have been chartreuse/blue, chartreuse/black, Monkey Milk or Electric Chicken. Cordell smoke-colored grubs with a chartreuse tip tail on a light wire jighead will pick up a few extra bites.
We are getting good reports of large Mason bream and bluegills biting well at the Millwood State Park and at Jack’s Isle over the past week using redworms and crickets. These aggressive bream were biting from the bank and the floating dock from 4-8 feet of depth.

Reported by: Arkansas F&G