Kings River Trip 09-01-2018

The Farm launch point looking upstream

09-01-2018

Kings River Arkansas

The Farm to Hwy 62 Bridge 8.2 Miles, 8 Hours

Gage height 2.90 ft

Fish Caught 25 total

1 Bluegill

4 Goggle Eye

20 Smallmouth Bass

Stasia and I had been chasing the water level to float the Kings River throughout spring and summer of 2018. Each weekend we had penciled in the calendar, either a large storm was coming or the water level was too low to float. We made the last minute decision to float the Kings River during Labor Day weekend after watching the water level peak and then slowly recede following heavy rains in the area. The Kings is our favorite Smallmouth Bass fishing river and we always have good luck; it’s only a short drive from my family’s lake house on Table Rock Lake.

Our morning started out early because we needed to stop by the local tire shop to have a tire patched on the truck before hitting the road. Fortunately, we already booked our vehicle shuttle through Trigger Gap Outfitters the day before, and I highly recommend using them for your next float adventure. They were very friendly, easy to work with, and the booking and payment was completed via phone. Once the tire was patched, we headed straight to the launch point since we didn’t need to go settle up with the Outfitter. The Farm is a private launch point that can only be accessed by going through a local Outfitter, and there is a $3 launch fee per boat. We wanted to launch from The Farm and take out at the Hwy 62 Bridge because this section is the Smallmouth Bass Trophy section of the Kings River with an 18” length limit of one bass. We love to fish for the sport and fun of it and regularly practice catch and release, unless we are trout fishing.

If you plan to launch or take out at The Farm and want to drive your vehicle to the river side, you’ll need a 4WD or AWD vehicle with decent ground clearance. The road is quite rocky and has a low water creek crossing as well as large mud holes to avoid. If you are renting boats and taking out there, you don’t have to drive through all these obstacles; you can instead park and walk a short distance down to the river.

The Farm launch point looking downstream

Once Stasia and I loaded up the canoe and launched, it wasn’t long before we had to get out of our canoe and walk it through the shallows until the water was deep enough to continue floating. We have floated this section of the river several times before but never had to get out and walk our canoe. We both quickly realized that we were going to have to work harder to catch some fish on this float.

The water was very clear and hardly moving. On average the stream was only six to eight inches deep, except there were some small pools that varied up to six feet deep. The deep pools are where we caught the most fish. I know typically you want to fish the riffles for Smallmouth, but due to the water levels most of the larger fish were in the deep, slow-moving pools. With the water clarity and our red Buffalo canoe, we had to be stealthy in our approach of each pool with slow paddling maneuvers to keep from spooking the fish. You wouldn’t believe how many fish scurried away as they saw our big red boat float by.

Less than one mile into the trip, I caught the first Smallmouth of the day! The gal at Trigger Gap Outfitters told me that a fisherman from Jackson Kayak had fished this section of the river the prior week and had great luck using a Ned Rig. So I had assembled half a dozen Ned Rigs in different colors and sizes. Stasia and I used different colors to see what the fish were biting on. Surprisingly the color didn’t play much of a factor; in fact, we pulled in fish from almost every pool we stopped at. Occasionally we had to tie new Ned Rigs on after the colored jig heads started to wear off on the rocky bottom. This technique proved to work well in catching a lot of fish, but it took some time to learn how to float fish it in the current. Keeping a constant bounce of the Ned Rig helped to keep it from hanging up on the rocky bottom when retrieving from a distance, but once the lure came closer to the boat we let it lie on the bottom which enabled trailing Smallmouth to pounce.

Jacob with a Kings River smallmouth bass

For those who are unsure what the Ned Rig is, it’s a simple lure that anyone can assemble. First you need a jig head with some decent weight and your preferred color for where you’ll be fishing, along with a sinking soft plastic worm. I prefer the Chompers Salty Sinker Worms in Smoke Purple Flake and Watermelon Candy. Tie your jig head on your line, then break your sinking worm in half and place the broken end of the worm on the hook first, seated up tight to the jig head with the worm body trailing behind. This is not a weedless setup, but it does work for catching Smallmouth Bass in lakes and streams. It was my first time fishing a Ned Rig in a river and trust me, it won't be my last.

Prior to our float, I marked several areas on my GPS where I thought we needed to spend extra time fishing based off of what I could remember from our previous floats and what looked good on the satellite images. These spots turned out to not be as useful as I thought because the water level was much lower than our previous float and the river also appeared to change over the years due to the usual spring floods. Around two miles in, our strategy quickly changed from looking for those marked locations to heavily fishing any water that appeared deep enough to hold fish. Once we caught one fish, we knew there were more holed up. So we fished a pool until we stopped catching them and then moved on to the next. In total, we caught one Bluegill, four Goggle Eye, and twenty Smallmouth Bass.

Stasia with a nice Smallmouth

Throughout our entire float, we only ran across three other people kayaking a short stretch of the river. It was hard to believe that Labor Day weekend we had the whole river to ourselves! This was the peaceful and quiet float we were looking for. The only downfall of this float was having to portage our canoe four times to get around downed trees. Additionally, we had to get out and walk the canoe through shallow riffles multiple times, as well as navigate through narrow rocky passages in swift water. This was not a float for the weak; we sure worked hard for it. By the end of our eight mile float we figured that we averaged a one mile per hour speed.

Kings River near Hwy 62 Bridge

As we approached Hwy 62 Bridge, we came across civilization with many locals enjoying the deep swimming hole under the bridge. It’s always bittersweet when you round the last corner and realize you are at your take out point. It’s both a relief that you can stop paddling and a downer that you have come to the end of your float.

At the Hwy 62 Bridge access point, you can no longer drive down on the gravel bar; we had to carry our gear and canoe nearly one hundred yards uphill to the parking lot to load up the truck and head back to the lake house. We fished the final deep pool before packing up the poles and heading north to Missouri. All in all, if you’re looking for a relaxing and beautiful float, check out the Kings River; likewise, if you’re wanting to try your luck in Smallmouth Bass fishing, check out the Kings River!