Striper Bass Fishing Reels in Big Bucks

Ed Chapko goes fishing most every day. But he doesn’t tell a lot of tall tales about the one that got away. Instead he tells about the ones he’s seen brought in.

The owner of E&C Striper Guide Service, Chapko is on Beaver Lake working about 200 days a year, he figures, showing executives from around the world, or just down the road, how to reel in a bona fide Arkansas trophy fish — striped bass.

An eight year-old, well-fed and lucky “striper” can reach 40 pounds or more. Guides agreed there’s nothing like having one on the end of a line.

“When they hit, they hit hard,” said Thirl Mackey, another area guide. “They’re real fightin’ fish.”

Mackey likened the pull of a hooked striper to landing the fishing tackle on the deck of a boat going the opposite direction. It’s as close to big game deep sea fishing as it gets without actually going to the coast.

Beaver Lake is high up on the list of U.S. lakes for the size of striper it produces, Mackey said. The average sized striper pulled from Beaver Lake is in the 12- to 18-pound range, according to several guides. But the promise of a 30- to 40-pounder keeps the cottage industry busy.

Striper fishing is estimated to generate more than $16 million in the state’s annual economy from the six lakes where the fish are stocked, according to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Guides have specialized boats, equipment and bait. They set poles in on-board holsters, troll the water with their lines and wait. When a client gets a strike, they’ll talk the fisherman through the process and help bring in the monster. Most guides will even clean the catch if they’re asked.

Mackey has trips booked through next summer and said about 60 percent of his business comes from corporate clients.

His prices are right in line with the local average, about $275 for two people for a five-hour tour. There is a charge of $50 to $65 per person for additional people, up to four per boat with most guides, but up to six with some.

All guides are leery of quoting a hard fee figure due to rising gas prices. Mackey, who drives a 24-foot Falcon, said he recently spent $190 to fill up the tank and will only get two trips out of it. A decent pole and reel set-up can run $200, Mackey said. It’s just another item in a long list of expenses.

Chapko, who guessed his annual revenue at $60,000, said he doesn’t really make money at the trade after taxes, insurance and fuel. Instead, he gets to scrape by mostly doing what he likes. His 200 or so days a year spent fishing for work is just 48 days shy of the average amount of time a typical office worker spends sitting behind a desk. But Chapko has a much better view.

The Catch

Guides are somewhat hesitant to talk too much about their business, not wanting to tip off others to their trade secrets.

Three guides did agree, however, that the best chance of catching a big one is later in the year. The cooler it gets, the bigger the fish, but the fewer strikes on the line, they say.

There is a limit of three stripers per person, and all guides prefer that a 20-plus pounder be released if a client doesn’t intend to have it mounted. That practice keeps the lake stocked with trophy-sized fish, they said.

A good mount costs about $10 an inch, Chapko said. A 40-pound fish is about four feet long, so a taxidermy bill could run close to $500 if an angler’s dreams come true.

There is some disagreement between guides as to the time of day to hit the water.

One guide goes out for morning runs in the summer and into the fall. Another said a late evening run is best, say 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Still another swore the midnight to 5 a.m. time frame was the best because stripers are hungrier then.

On a typical tour, Melvin Priest, co-owner of M&D Striper Guide Service, said he will troll the boat up and down the lake looking for stripers.

There’s no specific sweet spot, he said. “We just chase them, basically.”

Since stripers are predators, they migrate throughout the lake, always hoping to find a large school of shad, the fish they feed on.

Though Mackey compared a “set” hook to a passing bass boat, he said there’s no real physical requirements to reel in a good-sized striper. He’s had 90-pound women bring in a 30-pound fish. It’s just a matter of working it, he said.

Priest’s personal guide record was about 47 pounds, he said. Chapko remembers a 43-pounder, but all guides stress that those are the exception rather than the rule.

Big Bad Bass

Striped bass, so called because of the distinctive black dotted stripes along their bodies, are so big because they were originally saltwater fish. In 1941, the Santee-Cooper Reservoir was created near Santee, S.C., enclosing an inland channel of the Atlantic Ocean. Stripers that were spawning up river were trapped. They managed to survive and flourish in the resulting lake.

Since then, they’ve become freshwater trophy fish and are stocked in lakes with the right habitat around the county.

Ron Moore, the northwest district fisheries biologist for the AGFC, said Beaver Lake is perfect for stripers because of its large gizzard shad and threadfin shad population.

Both forms of shad are forage fish introduced to the lake. Shad populations are so good because of the high amount of nutrients in the water at Beaver. At least some of the vital nutrients come into the lake via runoff from area poultry farms, Moore said. The lake is rich because the land is so rich.

So what causes some Oklahomans to shake their phosphorus-covered fists, feeds the shad population, which in turn feeds the striper population, which feeds tourism in the “Natural State” — a dubious food chain of events.

Moore recommends that between 150,000 and 200,000 fingerling stripers be stocked in Beaver Lake each year, he said, usually at the higher end.

Fingerlings are two- to four-inch baby stripers hatched by the AGFC in captivity near Hot Springs. Moore said stripers can’t really reproduce in high numbers in lakes.

In the AGFC’s management plan that outlines state policy on striper bass, it’s estimated that the striper sport alone brings $16.7 million into Arkansas through tourism and incidentals. The AGFC only spends about $35,600 a year stocking six lakes with striped and hybrid bass, a return any businessperson would be thrilled to reel in.

Not all 200,000 stripers are pulled from Beaver Lake. Moore said many of those will be eaten by other fish soon after they hit the water or die for other reasons. A survey Moore’s office conducted showed that between 2,400 and 5,800 stripers a year were “harvested” from the lake in the late 1990s. But, Moore said many guides fish late at night, so he considered the survey flawed. Basically, it’s impossible to tell how many are caught, he said.

The sport is gaining popularity overall, Moore said. The number of guides on Beaver has increased dramatically in the last 10 years, he said.

Allure of the Lure

It’s more than the big fish that bring people from Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. It’s the atmosphere and beauty of Beaver Lake, too.

Charlie Myers, the sales manager at National Oil Well Varco Inc. of Houston, offices out of Oklahoma City and takes clients on trips about 10 times a year. Some of those trips he goes trout fishing on the White River, but about five times a year he entertains clients on Beaver Lake with Chapko.

“Ed’s real friendly and courteous to your customers,” Myers said. Some guides aren’t and that can be bad for business, he said.

“If anybody can catch fish, Ed can,” Myers said.

People have a good chance of catching a trophy fish on Beaver Lake, he said, as much or more than Lake Texoma. But Beaver has better scenery.

Neil Carey, director of international sales for Simmons Foods Inc. of Siloam Springs, takes clients striper fishing about twice a year.

“It’s the thrill of a lifetime,” he said. “It’s first-class entertainment.”

Carey said he’s taken people from Russia, China and Turkey fishing with Chapko.

“I use it as a form of entertainment for people. Not everybody plays golf,” Carey said.

A client from Turkey who went out with Chapko last year was still raving about the experience just a month or so ago, Carey said, and “[that client] fishes on the Aegean Sea.”

The Trade

Dwaine Bleeker has owned Riverview Resort, a 10-cabin resting spot, and the attached country grocery store on U.S. Highway 62 near Eureka Springs for 23 years. The store stocks fishing tackle and gallons of milk, and .22-caliber game loads sit on a shelf next to packs of cigarillos.

Mounted 14-pound and 20-pound stripers along with faded Polaroids of proud catches squeeze out product marketing space because, for Bleeker, the promise of big fish is a lifeline to revenue. The store, which smells of summer at the lake, is about five miles up river from Beaver Dam.

Bleeker runs canoes through the summer. He ran a striper guide service out of the store for about eight years. His brother-in-law was the guide, but health problems and the cost of upkeep on the boat eventually convinced him to sell that segment of his business. The boat went to Mackey, who has about $52,000 invested in it, and Bleeker now brokers as many as six guides for a percentage of their fee.

Mackey gets a lot of the business, but when big groups call or Mackey’s booked, Bleeker sets up multiple boats.

What keeps people coming back to Beaver Lake?

“That possibility of catching that big one,” Bleeker said.