Home Tournaments Calendar Weather Merchandise Sponsors

Go Back   Spearboard.com - The World's Largest Spearfishing Diving Boating Social Media Forum > United States Geographical Locations > Freshwater Shooting

Freshwater Shooting Live inland, away from the ocean? Tell us about freshwater hunting here.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Rating: Thread Rating: 10 votes, 5.00 average. Display Modes
Old 08-13-2007, 09:10 AM   #1
Les Sage
Registered User
 
Les Sage's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 657
Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

After returning from a California vacation on Thursday, I didn’t expect to be able to make a spearfishing trip to Beaver or Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas this weekend. But, after mowing the yard and checking on my elderly parents, I decided I could manage a quick trip to Beaver Lake Saturday morning and be back home in the afternoon. While in California, I purchased a new 9/32nd shaft for my Riffe Mid-Range speargun and I was anxious to try it out on a “Freshwater Striper”.

I arose early Saturday and drove to the Beaver lake dam area and started looking for places to dive. Without my boat, I needed to find a place to freedive from shore. There are only a few spots in this area that are accessible and good for Striper hunting. Beaver Lake, with its clear water, is a paradise for divers and dive shops from Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas bring students here for their open water certification. Saturdays and Sundays are very busy.

After finding an unoccupied spot, I suited up and swam out into the lake . On my first dive to 41 feet, a very large Striper swam by and I fired my speargun. The large tail sounded and I was yanked off the bottom. Line was burning off my reel and then…it stopped. As I pulled up the shaft, I noticed the slip-tip was still attached. Since the shaft didn’t completely go through, it simply pulled out! This point had a small O-ring to hold the tip in place and it apparently offered enough resistance to prevent the tip from coming off. I took off the O-ring and pulled the spectra back into the band. I continued to hunt this same area for an hour, but didn’t see any sign of this fish or others. I decided to move to another spot.

I swam about 100 yards to the west. By this time, my dives were of longer duration and I was reaching deeper depths. Swimming further from the shore, I dove next to top of a large Oak tree and made a good landing on the bottom at 50 feet. The timber was thicker here and I was thinking how the conditions are quite similar to the Kelp diving I was doing a few days earlier in California. I heard a Striper nearby and then saw it appear at the edge of my visibility. No doubt, it sensed my presence and came in for a closer look. As I extended my gun, it turned to leave so I fired. This fish wasn’t as large as the first one, but it was taking line in a hurry. By the time I reached the surface, it had pulled about 100 feet off the reel. I was worried about the slip-tip holding, but there was nothing I could do but hang on. After several good runs, I begin to pull in line. When I got to the shooting line I could see, the fish and the shot placement. It was in the back of the head and the slip-tip was not visible. I pulled this fish on up to the surface and dispatched it with my snake dagger.

This Striper was a beautiful fish and it provided a good ride. I was quite pleased to make the hour drive and shoot two quality fish within a few hours. I really enjoyed diving in Southern California and being able to shoot a nice White Sea Bass. On the other hand, spearing large Striped Bass in Beaver Lake is pretty hard to beat!

Pixs below.

Les Sage
Joplin, MO
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	100_9789.JPG
Views:	1389
Size:	97.2 KB
ID:	59757   Click image for larger version

Name:	100_9792.JPG
Views:	1799
Size:	97.1 KB
ID:	59758  
Les Sage is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2007, 09:29 AM   #2
joelovesfishin
Registered User
 
joelovesfishin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Chesapeake, VA
Posts: 558
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Awesome report! Thanks for sharing. Glad to see good quality fish in freshwater.

Joe
joelovesfishin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2007, 10:13 AM   #3
Prater
Registered User
 
Prater's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Kwajalein Atoll, RMI
Age: 53
Posts: 3,153
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Thanks for sharing.

I dove Beaver last year and the clarity was amazing for freshwater.
Prater is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2007, 10:19 PM   #4
element
Registered User
 
element's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 519
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Nice fish!
element is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2007, 10:51 PM   #5
SpearMax
Forum Administrator
 
SpearMax's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Florida USA
Posts: 16,466
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Damm Les........... that is a monster! Nice catch!
__________________
"Spearing is the path to enlightenment." --- Lao Tzu

“Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find 'tomorrow' on the calendars of fools.”

---- Success Unlimited Author Og Mandino b.1923 - d.1996
SpearMax is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2007, 10:53 PM   #6
OceanEd
Registered User
 
OceanEd's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Melbourne, Fl.
Age: 76
Posts: 3,818
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Beautiful fish!
OceanEd is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-14-2007, 12:06 PM   #7
Stick 'EM
Eat Em Raw
 
Stick 'EM's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Montana
Age: 50
Posts: 630
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Nice shooting-great fish Les.
Stick 'EM is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-14-2007, 03:58 PM   #8
omni
Whats this pointy thing?
 
omni's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Northwest Arkansas
Age: 44
Posts: 144
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Nice fish!
__________________
Arkansas spearfishing. With 8 feet of vis you know you are hardcore!!!
omni is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-15-2007, 07:54 AM   #9
Mobile Diver
Registered User
 
Mobile Diver's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Key West, FL
Posts: 5,820
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Outstanding freshwater spearing!!
__________________
Steve Moore
www.keysmobilediving.com
steve@keysmobilediving.com
305 849 0866
Mobile Diver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-16-2007, 01:33 AM   #10
jdeirmend
Registered User
 
jdeirmend's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Moorpark, CA
Age: 40
Posts: 1,467
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Now that is about as good as freshwater spearing gets. Maybe with the exception of a safari trip of spearing in the Amazon River, or spearing Nile Perch in lake victoria.
__________________
James Deirmendijan
Thousand Oaks, California
jdeirmend is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-20-2007, 05:16 PM   #11
rpowers
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: AR
Posts: 94
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Les,

where did you put in from shore to find that timber? i didn't realize there was much exposed timber near the dam. was that toward the Indian Creek ramp? or by the dam?
rpowers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-20-2007, 05:18 PM   #12
rpowers
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: AR
Posts: 94
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

BTw that is a super fish!!!
rpowers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-20-2007, 08:49 PM   #13
John Hughes
wsb....I'm over it!
 
John Hughes's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: San Pedro
Posts: 4,300
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

Les, I'm sure it's great to get home and shoot some quality fish in your own backyard! Great job my man! Hope you had a good time while you were out our way and look forward to hookin up next time you're in the area.

BTW, what's that weird thing hangin out the side of the fish below the dorsal fin? Looks like some kind of parasite or something.

Also, I don't think you ever got back to me on the similarities between the wsb meat and the stripers. Which do you prefer??
__________________
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10
John Hughes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-21-2007, 12:53 PM   #14
Les Sage
Registered User
 
Les Sage's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 657
Re: Striper spearfishing in Beaver Lake, AR

rpowers wrote:
was that toward the Indian Creek ramp? or by the dam?


That area is south of the dam on the main body of the lake. Can't tell you exactly b/c it is a secret spot :-)

John Hughes wrote:
BTW, what's that weird thing hangin out the side of the fish below the dorsal fin? Looks like some kind of parasite or something.


John, that "weird thing" is a smaller version of what hangin out of the mouth of your WSB picture. Seriously, that is the spectra line from my slip-tip. The end of the slip-tip is within the fish, under the skin; it did a good job of holding this fish. For the picture, I simply unscrewed the point from the shaft.

Both fish are excellent food fair and they seemed quite similar to me.

Les
Les Sage is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:05 PM.


The World's Largest Spearfishing Diving Social Media Forum Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2002 - 2014 Spearboard.com