Information On Bv Lakes

[EddieRay]

You can (finally) download pre-impoundment topos (for all but Avalon) at the USGS Historical map site;

http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/topomaps/f?p=262:1:22602829645695

Select Arkansas/All scales, then type in Hiwasse (for the west side lakes). Select the oldest version ('71 or '72) and dowload the GeoPDF. Go back and do the same, only type in Bentonville North for the east side.

Should be able to get the lake elevations on the POA site, but even without them a little eyeball comparison to the BV map or Google Earth and you'll have a pretty good picture of things. The house sites were all dozed/burned, and most of the timber too (pers comm). For manmade structure, the old roadbeds are about all that's left, and they're pretty subtle, but some still have a visible clue to location on the shoreline.

If I ever get bored/shutin enough to redo them in Photoshop, I'll post them here for all, but I don't see that happening till at least winter... :-)

Thanks for the info, bfishn.

[bfishn]

You're welcome. In my (as yet unsuccessful) search for lake elevations, I learned we should soon have some really good maps available;

http://bellavistapoa.com/newsmanager/anmviewer.asp?a=4142&print=yes

[Quillback]

Cool, sounds like these will be pretty good maps.

[Guest]

There's an extension that can be added to Google earth on any computer to show this topo map.

I will provide the link for those of you Google earth folks.

It can easily be downloaded free If you don't have it.

It took me an hour of tinkering to get a link to actually work.

There's a transparency bar that you can slide to get the aerial photo underneath to show thru the topo map.

Its a cool feature that helped me line up some offshore stuff.

[Guest]

You're welcome. In my (as yet unsuccessful) search for lake elevations, I learned we should soon have some really good maps available;

http://bellavistapoa.com/newsmanager/anmviewer.asp?a=4142&print=yes

Those maps will be super accurate!

The 3D imagery will make it easy to read the lake bed.

I found it interesting that they had different equipment to map the sediment load back in the coves.

I can't wait for the new maps to be released.

[EddieRay]

Thanks for the map information, everyone. I haven't had time to check out what everyone has been posting until now. I work in IT and have been slammed the past couple of weeks and I am working this weekend. I can't wait to take a few days off.

[Guest]

I brought home 9 bass under the slot and 3 big ole bluegill.

The water has cleared up since last weekend and killed the crankbait bite.

We resorted to texas rigged creature baits fished around shallow boat docks.

I caught the bream on a light Carolina rig (1/4oz) with a stout #8 gamakatsu panfish hook and pinched off nightcrawler.

I was dragging it behind the boat as my dad worm fished the docks.

That's the first time that I've ever bream-fished without a bobber, so it was good to learn a new trick.

It reminds me of trout fishing or catfishing with worms.

Now, I have the confidence to fish deep and hopefully extend the bream bite into the dog days of summer.

Thanks bfishn!!

[EddieRay]

We returned from Bella Vista on June 3rd but I have been so busy playing catch-up at work I haven't had a chance to give you all an update. Our best day for numbers was 33 bass at Loch Lomond and most of those fish were cookie cutter fish no more than 2 or 2.5 lbs. We also fished Lakes Windsor, Ann, and Brittany. We had an 11 fish day at Windsor with the biggest fish at around 3.5 lbs. My wife caught a couple of bream that were hand-sized at Lake Lomond. I would have liked to have fished more but vacation time can't be all about me and my wife wanted to do some other things. We took a day trip to Eureka Springs and spent another day checking out Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville and hiking. I wish I could tell you about a big bass but it wasn't meant to be this time.

Thanks to all for the information. We had a great time.

[bfishn]

We had a great time.

That's what matters! big fish are overrated anyway.

[Quillback]

Cool, glad to hear you got into some bass and did some other fun stuff.