The crystal-clear waters of Arkansas’ Lake Ouachita harbor lots of big line-stretching slabs just waiting to be caught. (Photo: Keith Sutton)
Plan a Crappie Vacation at Diamond Lakes
by Keith Sutton
Hot Springs is the number-one tourist town in Arkansas. This bustling community west of Little Rock is home to Hot Springs National Park, the nation’s only inner-city national park, where visitors can tour historic Bathhouse Row and sample the area’s hot therapeutic spring waters. Other family attractions include the Hot Springs Mountain Tower, Arkansas Alligator Farm & Petting Zoo, Garvan Woodland Gardens, Magic Springs Water Park, Mid-America Science Museum and much more. The Ouachita Mountains cradle the town, providing a beautiful setting for hiking, biking, swimming, fishing and other outdoor activities.
The four “Diamond Lakes”—Catherine, Hamilton, Ouachita and DeGray—give Hot Springs its sparkle. Covering a combined total of almost 63,000 acres, these nearby impoundments are a magnet for fishermen and water sports enthusiasts. All offer top-rated spring fishing for crappie. If you’re an angler considering a visit, here’s a guide to what awaits you.
Lake Catherine
The Arkansas Power & Light Company constructed Lake Catherine in 1924 by laying Remmel Dam across the Ouachita River just east of Hot Springs. The 1,940-acre, 11-mile-long lake provides an amazingly diverse fishery for such a small body of water. It contains not only crappie but bluegills, redears, catfish (flatheads, channels and blues) striped bass, hybrid stripers, white bass and even walleyes and rainbow trout. Not surprisingly, however, crappie are the main attraction for many visiting anglers.
Some folks complain that Catherine is a hard lake to fish, but savvy anglers fishing with jigs, minnows and other prime enticements won’t find it too hard to catch lots of 1- to 2-pound crappie and occasional slabs up to 3 pounds. Top crappie-fishing areas include the state park bay, a small backwater area adjacent Lake Catherine State Park near the lake’s east end off Highway 171; Spencer’s Pocket, a broad finger of water on the lake’s north side; and Couch’s Bay, a long north-shore arm just a short distance up and across the lake from the state park.
Lake Catherine State Park offers a full-service marina, camping facilities and cabins. For further information, go here.
Lake Hamilton
Lake Hamilton borders the southern edge of Hot Springs. Carpenter Dam, which impounds the lake, was constructed in 1932 to create a 7,200-acre, 18.5-mile-long body of water.
When searching for spring crappie, Hamilton anglers usually fish with jigs or live minnows. Good areas to target include four major creek basins—White Oak, Williams, Little Mazarn and Fourche Loop. Look for shallow flats going into embayments off the main creek channels, then look for brushpiles. That’s where crappie are likely to be. Because Hamilton is an old lake and has little natural cover, local anglers have put a lot of brushpiles into the lake in different areas. Use sonar to look for the brushpiles, and when you’ve found one, just bump the brush with a jig or minnow. If a slab is there, chances are you’ll get a quick strike.
Docks are another place to investigate when seeking Hamilton’s spring crappie. Several thousand homes line the lake’s shore, and there’s a fishing dock with nearby brushpiles behind almost all of them. Look for signs of crappie anglers around the docks—things such as chairs, rod holders and crappie lights. Docks with these features are most likely to have brushpiles in adjacent water, and knowing this can save time when you’re trying to pinpoint fish.
Lake Hamilton anglers will find a variety of overnight accommodations and fishing supply dealers in Hot Springs. Several boat ramps are available, including one at the Andrew Hulsey State Fish Hatchery on the lake’s south side off State Highway 290. For additional information, visit lakehamilton.com.
Lake Ouachita
Lake Ouachita, a 40,000-acre Corps of Engineers impoundment just west of Hot Springs, is the largest lake lying entirely within Arkansas’ boundaries. At normal pool level, it extends up the Ouachita River Valley a distance of 30 miles Created in 1953 by the construction of Blakely Dam, it is deep, crystal-clear, surrounded by national forest lands and one of the most popular Hot Springs area tourist attractions. Fishing is excellent for crappie and a wide variety of other sportfish.
Because Ouachita is so clear, crappie usually are found deeper than in many other Natural State waters. Concentrate your search along brushy banks where the water gradually drops from shallow to deep, and in the backs of coves. Fishing around the lake’s many boat docks also is a productive way to find slabs. There are many coves full of straight pole-like timber that also hold concentrations of crappie. Fishing one piece of timber then moving to another is a good way to nab a mess of fish.
Soft plastics are good for targeting the biggest crappie, which sometimes weigh 2 to 3 pounds or more. A pair of 3-inch Yum Grubs rigged on 1/8-ounce leadhead jigs is a sure-fire slab catcher, and other bigger-than-normal baits of this type are sure to entice Ouachita’s crappie as well. Most crappie anglers here still fish with jigging poles, working each individual bit of cover thoroughly from a boat. But because Ouachita’s water is so clear, it may be helpful to stay back from your fishing area and cast to it using a spinning or spincasting outfit. For additional information, visit lakeouachita.org.
This 13,800-acre Corps of Engineers impoundment on the Caddo River is 21 miles south of Hot Springs. Completed in 1972, this deep reservoir can be a real challenge for crappie anglers, but 1- to 2-pound crappie are common, and 3-pounders occasionally surface.
Some of the best fishing is in the upper lake in the Brushy Creek area and where some other tributaries come in. Brushy Creek has a lot of crappie-attracting structure and a lot of timber, and crappie anglers have sunk numerous brushpiles even around the wooded coves there.
There are also a lot of timbered, brushy coves where Big Hill Creek flows into the north-central part of DeGray. And from Point 15 on upriver, you have more riverine-type habitat than just open water. Anglers will find some pretty good crappie fishing in that stretch, too.
Keep in mind that when fishing for crappie on DeGray, you’re not just fishing stumps and treetops; you’re fishing a lot of structure underneath the lake, too. The underwater ridges and islands, especially those with fish attractors, are excellent crappie habitat. In spring, many fish will be found on the big flats adjacent long sloping points. Where you can find shallow water breaking off quickly into deep water, you have an excellent chance of filling a stringer with a limit of fat crappie. For more info, go to degraylake.org.
Additional information (places to stay and eat, things to do, events to attend) for planning your visit to Hot Springs and the Diamond Lakes region is available from the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Keith Sutton is editor of our sister magazine, CatfishNOW.com. He’s been an avid crappie angler for more than half a century, pursuing his favorite panfish on waters throughout the United States. His fishing stories have been read by millions in hundreds of books, magazines, newspapers and Internet publications. In 2021, he was inducted into the Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame.
