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Bass Fishermen Troll With The Flow At Small-Sized Sooner Lake
Last updated Thursday, December 2, 2004 10:47 PM CST in Outdoors
By Flip Putthoff
The Morning News
LOCUST GROVE, OKLA. -- To bass fishermen at W.R. Holway Reservoir, running and gunning means cranking up the trolling motor and getting to the next honey hole at a pedestrian pace.
Gasoline engines are prohibited on the small eastern Oklahoma hydro-power lake. On a cloudless Saturday, bass fanatic Kenny Stroud of Siloam Springs covered most of the lake's 712 acres and never burned a drop of fuel. It might have cost him a few pennies to recharge his 12-volt battery at the end of the day.
A ban on internal combustion engines isn't the only quirk of this bass fishing haven situated 30 miles west of Siloam Springs in Mayes County, Okla. The lake level can fall several feet in a few hours, then rise again in a 24-hour span.
During hydro-power generation, water is released at the dam to produce electricity. Then the lake is refilled by pumping water back from nearby Lake Hudson. That's why regulars like Stroud refer to the lake by its nickname, "pump back."
The deep, rocky reservoir was built in 1968 and originally christened Chimney Rock Lake. The name was changed to W.R. Holway Reservoir in 1981 to honor Holway, a longtime engineer with the Grand River Dam Authority.
Stroud watched the sun climb the glass of his rear-view mirror during an early-morning 45-minute drive from Siloam Springs to the "pump back" lake.
At the ramp, he eased his aluminum boat into water that was clear, but stained like weak tea.
The 712-acre lake is one of the smaller fishing destinations among the sprawling reservoirs in eastern Oklahoma.
"It seems pretty big when all you've got is a trolling motor," Stroud said over the motor's gentle hum as we made our way toward the main body of the lake.
No gasoline motors means no bass boats rocket down the lake. There are no personal watercraft, no wakes and no noise. When Stroud made his first casts, the only sounds were a warm breeze in the pines and the chirping of song birds.
"It's deep and it's rocky," Stroud mused while we fished a bank strewn with boulders the size of bowling balls. On our electric-powered cruise from the launch ramp, his depth finder graphed water over 100 feet deep.
Largemouth, spotted and smallmouth bass fin in the depths of W.R. Holway Reservoir. It's smallmouths that have kept Stroud coming to the lake for 10 years.
He has gazed into the gold-ringed, dark eyes of 3- and 4-pound smallies and lost one smallmouth that weighed between 5 and 6 pounds. Stroud goes exclusively for bass, but he said the fishing is good for crappie, white bass and catfish.
Cliff Sager, a fisheries biologists with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, regards the smallmouth population as trophy class. Smallmouth thrive in the deep, clear water. So do spotted bass.
"The unique population to me is the size of the spotted bass. Most reservoirs you think of spotted bass as smaller fish and almost a nuisance," Sager said.
Sager said W.R. Holway has a fluctuating population of threadfin shad that bass feed on. Stroud keeps a collection of shad-patterned crank baits and spinner baits to hoodwink black bass.
Four-inch plastic worms and hula grubs in dark colors are favorite baits for working the rocky bottom.
"One day the bite will be good on plastics," Stroud said. The next you'll catch them on nothing but spinner baits. It's not like a normal lake. That's what makes it kind of interesting."
What we heard and saw next was far from normal. At the dam an air-raid-like siren wailed an eerie monotone. Riffles started to form over a long, shallow point like they do on the shoals of an Ozarks stream. The lake level was dropping fast like someone pulled the plug.
The small size of W.R. Holway Reservoir means anglers can literally watch the lake level drop. Greg Ramsey, a dispatcher at the Grand River Dam Authority office in Locust Grove, Okla., said the lake can drop as much as 10 feet in a day during extended power generation.
"Generation takes place during the day, then the water is replaced at night at a time when there is a decreased demand for power," Ramsey explained.
Water is pumped back into W.R. Holway Reservoir from 12,000-acre Lake Hudson, which is just over the W.R. Holway dam.
The "pump back" lake is unique to this part of the country, but there are others around the nation, Ramsey said.
When the command goes out to "pull the plug" at W.R. Holway, Stroud doesn't pay much mind to the receding water level.
"Some people say it's better when the lake is up. Some say it's better when it's down. I've never found a consistent pattern," the angler said.
If he had to choose, Stroud would opt for the level to be low. He can see more of the structure that holds bass. That gives him more confidence in his fishing.
At W.R. Holway, structure means mostly rock. There are a few man-made brush piles and a scattering of submerged timber.
"When you do find some structure like trees or lay downs, you definitely work them," Stroud said.
Points, drop-offs and rocky banks get most of Stroud's attention. Fishing was slow this blue-sky Saturday. Stroud Texas-rigged a small black-and-blue plastic lizard. He threaded a small glass bead between the hook and a small bullet sinker "to give it a little sound."
Patience paid off when the first bass, a 2-pound largemouth, put on an aerial show. Stroud unhooked the fat, healthy bass and slid it back into the clear water.
As Stroud and I fished, we were amazed at the lack of anglers. Here it was a perfect Saturday, sunny and warm with a light breeze and wisps of clouds in sky. Except for a couple of distant boats, we had the lake to ourselves.
Stroud eased us into one of the reservoir's secluded coves. We fished craggy, pine-forested banks. There wasn't a home or dock in sight. If I'd just snapped out of a Rip Van Winkle nap, I'd swear we were fishing a fly-in lake in Canada.
We managed one more bass, another 2-pounder, that fell for a blue metal-flake finesse worm. We barely got the fish back in the water when the lone fisherman in a boat across the lake let out a whoop that shook the banks.
Back at the ramp, we found out the guy boated a 7 1/2-pound largemouth bass. We also learned why we could count the fishermen on one hand this gorgeous autumn Saturday.
Oklahoma was playing Oklahoma State. Football trumped fishing, at least for one day, here in the Ozarks foothills.
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