Lake Charles bream fishermen are doing real good with wax worms and crickets.  Fishermen are still catching some smaller crappie using minnows.  Bass fishing and catfishing are both good using large minnows.

Black River bass fishing continues to be good on spinnerbaits. Trout out of the Spring River are hitting bright colored Power Bait and nightcrawlers.

REWARDS OFFERED FOR LAKE HOGUE TILAPIA

Anglers at Lake Hogue in Poinsett County will have an opportunity to make some money while they fish.  As part of a fisheries study, more than 70 tilapia will carry yellow tags worth $20.00 each.  Each tag has a “Reward” printed on it, along with the telephone number of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Northeast Regional Office in Jonesboro.  The tags also include numbers specific to a particular fish.  Fisheries biologists urge anyone who catches a tagged tilapia to call the toll free number to collect the reward.  The object of the reward and exploitation study is to determine how many tilapia are being taken by sportsman during the summer and fall fishing season.  Tilapia were stocked in Lake Hogue in 2001 as part of a study to determine whether the fish would significantly enhance the lake’s food source for predators such as bass and crappie.  One of the unknowns was how well that they would be accepted by anglers.  Lake managers were surprised to see the excitement these exotic fish generated among Northeast Arkansas’s fishermen during the last two years.  Interviews of anglers suggest that many of the tilapia are harvested by panfish fishermen.  Most tilapia fishermen use red worms as bait.  There is no daily creel limit for tilapia.  Tilapia are semi-tropical fish and cannot survive in cold water.  This cold intolerance causes a die-off during the early winter season when water temperatures approach 47 degrees and fish may be picked up with a dip net.  Any tags collected during the die-off may be turned in for the reward.  About 15,000 tilapia were added to Lake Hogue in May at a cost of $10,000.00.