Northeast arkansas...again

[mo_86_05]

Hey all. Been a while since i posted. Been busy with work and all. Anyhow, to remind everyone, im in mississippi county. Wanted to get a status update on mallard. Rode thru there several months back and it looked bad. Did they stock anymore fish? The whole east side from the bank till about 15 ft out was all brush. Have they cleared it?

Also looking at maybe doing some winter crappie fishing. As stated before, i dont have a boat, so i bank fish. Any places close to me thats good for bank fishing crappie right now? Or any fishing? Tired to being trapped at work and home. Need to do some fising!

[Gindog]

I don't know anything about fish there in NE Ar but DD should have plenty birds there now.

[Mojorig]

The last couple of times we have been to Mallard, we have seen several anglers on the lake. We did not stock any crappie in Mallard Lake, this year. We do have a request in for crappie stocking FY 2014. I know you are interested in crappie but Mallard Lake experienced one of the best bass spawns ever for that lake. We suspect the crappie also had an excellent spawn.

The brush you saw on the east side of the lake was actually willow tree saplings that came up during the low water. We had them sprayed to stop them from spreading around the lake. I like willow trees as cover but there was a potential for the willow trees to completely block out the east side of the lake. The same situation occurred at Lake Ashbaugh in the past.

We do have plans to try to do a control burn around the levees of the lake to help make it easier for angler to bank fish. We plan on doing this after duck season.

[mo_86_05]

Thanks for the info jeremy. What about the other fish? Hows catfish and bream doing?

[Billy E]

Hey mo_86_05, PM me you phone # and maybe we can get together and fish some. I am trying to find a few places closer to Jonesboro this year. Mainly on the St. Francis. On the east side of the river past Lake City there is a place called Cockerbur I think. What ever it is they have a ramp and it is the next water I plan to explore after the new year.

[Mojorig]

Wow, I have to take back what I said in the earlier post about 2013 stockings!! I knew about the bluegill and catfish but I forgot about them stocking some crappie.

Here was what was stocked in Mallard this year (FY-2013)

Black Crappie - Yearlings - 32,250 -stocked 11/12/13
Bluegill - Fingerlings - 247,900 - stocked 11/13/13
Channel Catfish - Catchables - 300 - stocked 4/26/13
Channel Catfish - Catchables - 900 - stocked 10/9/13

The proposed stocking for FY-2014 will be channel catfish and crappie

[mo_86_05]

Ok so it looks like they stocked mallard up pretty good! What about big lake? I know it was drained a few years ago. I thought that pretty much everything there died. How has the stocking been going there?

[Mojorig]

The US Fish and Wildlife handles all Big Lake activates. I am not sure if they have stocked it and if they did, what they stocked. The AGFC hasn't stocked anything in there.