Lures for Buffalo River Arkansas Smallies

[stanzman]

I'm heading down to float the last 24 miles of the Buffalo River in 2 weeks and I was wondering if anyone could recommend what to use. I've heard that tubes work really well but wasn't sure about what colors work.  I was also thinking about getting some Yum Crawbugs.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

[hawgchaser]

First off, you are about to have one heck of a good time! That is a beautiful river and the fishing is great. Now I am jealous...

Anyway, I haven't fished the buffalo in years. They used to hit watermelon and pumpkin seed tubes and grubs. I have some friends that swear by X raps and other jerkbaits on that river. I have been tearing the smallies up on a watermelon Arkansas WartHawg but I am fishing a deep lake just south of the Buffalo.

I will ask some better sources and post back up when I get some first hand accounts.

[roadwarrior]

Welcome aboard!

I have never fished the Buffalo, but on Bull Shoals

the 3 1/2" Mizmo tube rules. The color is baby diaper

yellow, but they call it Kent's Classic or squash green.

8-)

[stanzman]

Thanks guys.  I will let you know how things go after I get back next weekend.  I picked up several bags of tubes, craws and minnows

[niteowl]

Looking forward to your report

I'll be there June 10th thru 14th,

In the past I have used pumpkin-seed tubes and a variety of rebel wee craws

[stanzman]

Well just got back from the float on the lower buffalo this weekend. The weather was awesome. The rain that was suppose to hit us this weekend completely missed and the water level was great. We didn't have to stop and walk once during the trip.

Now to the good stuff, the fishing. We did really well on 3 inch tubes in Green Pumpkin and 2.5in crawbugs also in green pumpkin. During the evening time I caught a couple on a 1/8 oz white buzzbait too. I'm not very confident in fishing rapals but I put one on for a while and caught some fish. We didn't really hook into any monsters, and the fishing today was really slow right before we hit the White. The biggest one we caught was about 14 inches.  We caught most of them around the fast moving water or rocky banks. I wouldn't even waste your time at the sandy banks.

Quick question. When did they start letting you bring motors on the lower stretch? I think they should go back to the old rule of no motors.

Also a word of warning, the White river is really cruising right now. We made it across fine to the White River Resort, but the boat behind us flipped over. They even had all the generators shut down today for something at Gastons. It might be worth floating down the extra couple miles until the next take-out.

[hawgchaser]

Glad you had a good trip. I haven't done that in years. Its a beautiful river.

[niteowl]

I just floated the stretch between Maumee down to the Hwy 14 bridge, used Wild Bill outfitters, great service web site and all the convenience.

This time I used a little different setup on lures. Soft plastics primarily.

My best fish came on a white spinner bait w/Indiana blade 3/16th oz. & Zoom fluke Jr. size rigged w/ 3/0 ewg hook. Not as many fish as Rebel Wee Craws but bigger fish a couple Small mouth broke the 14in barrier & a Large mouth thrown in for good measure that went 15in.