Most fly fishers come to Bull Shoals country to fish the White River below the dam, and that’s understandable — the White River tailwater is one of the great trout fisheries in the United States and the dam is why. But Bull Shoals Lake itself offers fly fishing opportunities that most visitors drive past without a second look, and that’s a mistake worth correcting. Bull Shoals Lake fly fishing for largemouth bass, spotted bass, and striped bass in the reservoir’s clear Ozark water is a legitimate experience that rounds out any trip to northern Arkansas.
Bull Shoals Lake covers 45,000 acres of clear, cold Ozark reservoir water in the White River hills of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. The lake is deep, clear, and cold — qualities that produce spotted bass and largemouth bass with a different character than the stained, warm-water reservoirs that dominate much of the South. Bull Shoals spotted bass are aggressive, hard-fighting fish that use the rocky cliff structure and submerged timber throughout the lake’s many arms with the kind of efficiency that makes them difficult to locate and very satisfying when you do.
Striped bass in Bull Shoals Lake stack in the deeper sections of the main lake during summer and push into creek arms and onto the surface during low-light feeding periods in spring and fall. The upper White River arm of Bull Shoals — the section closest to the dam — concentrates stripers in the cooler, deeper water near the dam face through the summer. Fall striper fishing in the upper lake arms when fish are chasing threadfin shad on the surface is among the most exciting fly fishing Bull Shoals offers.
Largemouth bass fishing along the numerous flooded creek arms — particularly in the upper portions of those arms where timber and vegetation provide structure — responds well to surface flies in the spring and to weighted streamers worked along bluff walls and rocky points through the summer and fall.
The real value of Bull Shoals Lake in any fly fishing trip to Arkansas is this: pair a morning of lake fishing with an afternoon on the White River below the dam and you have covered two distinctly different and equally productive fly fishing experiences without moving your truck.
Target Species: Largemouth Bass, Spotted Bass, Striped Bass, Walleye, Crappie Best Seasons: March–June (bass spawn, striper surface) | October–November (fall striper) Fly Patterns: Poppers, Deceivers, Clousers, crayfish streamers, surface frogs Notable Areas: White River arm, Beaver Creek arm, Long Creek arm, dam face area
Bull Shoals Lake Bass Fly Fishing Arkansas Bull Shoals Lake. That glorious, 45,000-acre beast straddling the Arkansas-Missouri border like a drunk uncle at a family reunion—half in one state, half […]