Greg Keefer.

OCTOBER
Bear Creek Lake Hybrids
Bear Creek Lake, near Marianna in the St. Francis National Forest, is an offbeat suggestion for hybrid striped bass. The 625-acre reservoir is best known for outsized redears, but it’s been stocked with hybrids for years. These aggressive fish provide excellent topwater action as the weather cools and they relentlessly chase shad around the lake. Hybrids in the 3- to 5-pound range are common.

Mississippi River Catfish
The Mighty Mississippi has no mercy on those without personal floatation devices, kill switches and powerful boats and motors. With the right equipment and experience, you can fish within sight of downtown Helena or West Memphis and have realistic chances at 50- to 100-pound whiskerfish. Chicken livers, night crawlers and stink baits are fine for channel cats, but giant flatheads require live sunfish, shad or skipjack herring. Ply undercut outer banks and the nastiest logjams you can find.

L’Anguille River Drum
The L’Anguille flows southward through Craighead, Woodruff, Poinsett, Cross, St. Francis and Lee counties and has a large freshwater drum population. People often catch them on bait and lures intended for sportier fish. If you can’t beat the drum, join locals at the 7th Annual L’Anguille River Festival and BBQ Cook-off in Palestine on Oct. 25.

NOVEMBER
Little Red River Brown Trout
Fishing pressure on the Little Red’s brown trout peaked during the October spawn, so you can now enjoy the tailwaters below Greers Ferry Dam with fewer competitors. Fly-fishers score with sow bugs, soft hackles and Woolly Buggers, while spin-fishermen take trout with worms, corn and ultralight marabou jigs dead-drifted under clear floats.

Lake Hogue Tilapia
The AGFC stocks tilapia, an exotic panfish that grows and reproduces rapidly during warm weather, only in closed-system lakes such as Hogue in western Poinsett County. They die off when the lake falls to between 46 and 48 degrees -- usually in late November. Simply net the 1- to 3-pound fish when they float to the surface. There’s no limit on tilapia now or earlier in the year, when they take red worms during midday in hot weather.

Lake Chicot Flatheads
Arkansas sportsmen like their catfish big, ugly and ready to fight, which perfectly describes the hulking flatheads in Lake Chicot, a 5,300-acre oxbow near Lake Village. While its channel cats feast on cut bait and chicken livers, flatheads prefer a wriggling sunfish, freshly hooked behind the dorsal fin or through the lips. Cast toward obvious structure like stumps, boat docks and cypress knees; then, work into deeper water.

DECEMBER
Bull Shoals/Norfork Crappie
Fishermen who ably fish deep, clear water bring home stringers of slab crappie from the twin Corps of Engineers reservoirs of north-central Arkansas, Bull Shoals and Norfork lakes. Start on either lake with a map that marks huge artificial brushpiles; then, move to deeper water as needed. The best tactic may be a combination of two old favorites: a jig with a light-wire hook dressed with a live minnow.

Lake Columbia Largemouth Bass
This 3,000-acre AGFC lake six miles west of Magnolia in Columbia County is one of few places offering an honest chance of hanging 5- to 11-pound largemouths. Fish stumps with spinnerbaits or junebug-colored plastic worms, and monitor the shallows for panicky baitfish. That action signals your chance to catch the fish of a lifetime on a topwater lure.

Dry Run Creek Trout
The best holiday gift for a young trout angler is a day on Dry Run Creek, which runs from Norfork National Fish Hatchery into the North Fork River near Mountain Home. This half-mile catch-and-release stream reserved for anglers under 16 and those with handicaps is so densely populated with huge trout that tourists drive miles out of their way just to see them.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
The AGFC packed everything you need to know about fishing and boating regulations into the 2008 edition of its Fishing Guidebook pamphlet, available free at agency offices and license dealers, or by calling 1-800-364-GAME (4263).

Find more about Arkansas
fishing and hunting at: ArkansasSportsmanMag.com