Well Longarm had to play Mr Mom yesterday so I drug CEB away from the books for a boat ride on Maumelle. We did some scouting and broke in my new gps by marking some main lake humps and chanel drops that look promising. We also found an old pond with a levy that topped out at 18 feet that looked real good.

I took CEB back to the launch about 8:00 so he could get back to work and I headed back to the pond we found. I set up right on the old pond levy, got the lights out, then the rods and was ready to go in perfect time. I opened the baitwell to start baiting up and almost cried. All but 2 of my minnows were dead. I almost packed it in I was so mad but decided to see what I could do with those two minnows. I put them on and gave em a ride to the bottom and decided to put a couple of jigs on two other poles so I could have 4 baits in the water. Before I got my second jig tied on a big ole sow white bass nailed one of the minnows I had tied on my 24 inch ice fishing rod. She wraped me around the lights and my jig line but I got her in. While I was fixing that mess my other minnow pole bent down and I brought in a nice 2 to 3 pound saugeye.

I went ahead with my jig pole plan but with little confidence as I never nightstalk with jigs and I knew they were nailing minnows. I finaly found a jig they liked and ended up with a great night for Maumelle. Caught 7 big whitebass, 2 saugeye 2 crappie and a big bull bream. One of the saugeye I would guess at almost 5 pounds which was a hoot on my 10 foot jig pole. The only jig they would hit were the two I picked up at crappie camp from Mike Simpson http://crappiemagic.com/. His jigs are awesome as not only do they perfectly ballance when using a small swivel but also have jewlers wire in them keeping the jig body in place. Not onece did I have to adjust the jig body with all those fish I caught, so thanks Mike for saving my trip.

Everybody this is a great time of year to go fish Maumelle on a nightstalk as you can actualy beat the heat, skeeters and water lice out there. Just find you a main lake hump or steep drop and set up for a few hours. If you go any night other than Tuesday or Friday you will have the lake to yourself as they hold bass tourneys those nights.