Back to Bull Shoals: Sept. 21-22 BFL should produce ‘stacked weights’
Bull Shoals Lake will make a rare appearance on the Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine schedule as it hosts the Arkie Division Super Tournament on Sept. 21-22. It’s been awhile since MLF fished on this Ozark lake, but the fishing is primed to be excellent, with a healthy fish population and cooling weather colliding for this event.
Tournament details
Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine Arkie Division Super Tournament
Sept. 21-22
Bull Shoals, AR
About the fishery
Bull Shoals Lake is a large reservoir created in 1951 after the completion of the Bull Shoals Dam on the White River. This Ozark Mountains fishery has over 1,000 miles of shoreline and 45,440 surface acres. It varies significantly from other fisheries such as Table Rock Lake and Lake of the Ozarks, according to Huntsville, Arkansas, pro Travis Harriman, who competes at several levels with Major League Fishing, including the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals.
“It’s a cool lake and the polar opposite of Lake of the Ozarks, which has docks every square inch,” Harriman said. “Bull Shoals is pretty much devoid of docks. It’s also crazy how many bass are in the lake. It’s got the same fish numbers as Table Rock, but there’s not nearly as much pressure, and the lake has about a tenth of the tournaments.”
Bull Shoals covers parts of both Arkansas and Missouri, and throughout the fishery, you’ll find many types of rock structures, but there are subtle differences that matter.
“It’s all rock, but to an ‘Ozark eye,’ there is a lot of variance,” Harriman said. “You have pea gravel, chunk rock, basketball-sized rock, shelf rocks, shale, big channel swings, and sand. There are all sorts of soil types and rock compositions, and the transition areas between one to another are always good places to target bass. The other thing is the lake is about 5 feet low, so there’s not a lot of bushes in the water and only a few sparse laydowns and logjams, so the rock will be even more important.”
What to expect
With cooling temperatures starting to become the norm ion the region, Harriman says the Bull Shoals bite should only continue to improve. He’s banking on the Sept. 21-22 Super being a power fishing event.
“The temps are starting to dip at night, and that will get the fish moving to shallow water,” he said. “There will be a good topwater bite, spinnerbaits, and squarebills, and maybe a swimbait should also be good. It’s too early for offshore shad bite to be a factor because most fish will be around structure or cruising down the bank.”
Two other factors Harriman believes will play are wolf packs of cruising bass and current flow.
“Right now, it’s all about covering water and trying to find those wolf packs of fish, but they move a lot, and you might find them in practice on Friday in one spot, and they’ll be a half mile away on tournament day,” he said. “Another thing to pay attention to is the current generation because they have to have some flow down below the dam for the trout fishing. They generate more in the afternoon, and it’s not as drastic as a TVA lake, but there is some correlation to it, and being in a later flight may help.”
If anglers are struggling to find fish, Harriman suggests checking out the fish attractors put out by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Missouri Department of Conservation. Each agency has these locations marked, and they can be great resources for saving a tournament day.
“Those are great places to fish, and if you see one, at least you know your bait will be around some structure,” he said. “They always seem to have some fish around them.”
Harriman believes catching fish will not be an issue in this event, with stacked weights.
“The lake has a ton of fish, and it’s not too difficult to catch 2-pounders, but those over 3-pounds can be tricky this time of year,” he said. “I think 31 or 32-pounds should win this for two days, but the weights will be close. After the first day, there will be a bunch of people that were ‘this close’ to making the second day.”