Millwood Lake best Natural State fishing tournament destination of 2024

Alton Burton (left) and Taylor Murphy (right) holding four of the fish that made their 33.44-pound five-fish limit during a Brad’s Custom Rods and Tackle Tournament Trail event last July. Photo courtesy Brad Thomas..

Saratoga — Between a recent February flurry of big bass and a steady showing in Arkansas bass fishing tournament trails, it came as no surprise to the Arkansas Black Bass Program team when Millwood Lake proved to be the best Natural State fishing tournament destination of 2024.

The southwest Arkansas fishery was ranked number one through an assessment of fishing quality indicators in the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s recently released Arkansas Tournament Information Program annual report.

“We compile information like number of fish caught by angler, total weights, winning weights and number of fish weighed that exceed 5 pounds,” Eric Naas, AGFC Black Bass Program biologist, said. “From that information, we can monitor a lot of trends throughout the tournament community and how it can help us manage the fisheries that we get data on.”

Naas says the overall results are similar to last year, but they continue to show small increases in some categories anglers always pay attention to.

“Across all bass tournaments we could gather records for throughout the state, average first-place weights went up slightly, as well as the average number of bass caught per angler per tournament day,” Naas said. “In 307 tournament reports, the average angler weighed 2.12 bass per day compared to 1.87 in 2023. Anglers also weighed an average of 4.31 pounds of fish per day in 2024 compared to 3.75 pounds per angler per day in 2023. That may not seem like much, but considering it’s stretched over 300 tournaments, it’s a nice increase.”

Naas stresses that figures pulled from the report can be affected by the low frequency of reports for certain lakes.

“Some lakes may only have six or seven tournament reports while others have dozens, and one bad tournament day can throw off the final results a lot if there aren’t many cards to balance things,” Naas said. “That’s why we only rank lakes with at least five tournament reports, but even then, we’d like to get more reports.”

Roughly 73 percent of the tournament results actually were tracked down by Naas, who spent many hours scanning the social media accounts and websites of tournament organizations and fishing groups.

“We can get a lot of the data we need from those posts you see of tournament results, but if organizers would add a few more details, like the number of fish caught over 5 pounds and the number of fish per angler, we could make use of a lot more reports,” Naas said. “Of course, filling out the online form at www.agfc.com/atip takes only a couple of minutes and they can do that right at the boat ramp, too.”

Millwood has been a mainstay near the top of the rankings since the ATIP report was created, but this is the first time since 2016 that it took top honors.

“There are a lot of factors that go into Millwood’s high production for anglers,” Naas said. “For one, it has a vast amount of fishable water compared to the deep highland reservoirs in the state. Being a lowland reservoir, it’s also very fertile with a lot of nutrients in the lakebed and water. Combine that with south Arkansas’s long growing season, and you have a good combination of factors to grow a lot of fish and let them grow large. That and the (AGFC’s) Florida Bass Program.”

According to database records, Millwood bass have seen ample influence from Florida bass through the AGFC’s hatchery system. Since 1984, more than 7.84 million Florida largemouth bass have been stocked in Millwood to increase growth potential in the population.

“Millwood has one of the best contributions of Florida bass in the state,” Naas said. “Especially considering the size of the reservoir.”

Jeremy Risley, AGFC Black Bass Program coordinator, says Millwood is a perfect example of how the AGFC has used Florida bass in its stockings to increase overall growth in the lake.

Millwood Lake receives a healthy portion of Florida bass from AGFC hatcheries. AGFC photo by Mike Wintroath.

“When we stock a Florida bass, we’re not just stocking those fish to grow big and be caught,” Risley said. “The idea is to get their genetics into the system and keep them high. We’ll actually have fairly few ‘pure’ Florida bass in the system, but the more genetics of Florida bass a largemouth has, the better its chances of having good growth when conditions are favorable.”

Among Millwood’s impressive stats last year was the largest five-fish limit weighed, a 33.44-pound sack caught during a Brad’s Custom Rod and Tackle Tournament Trail event. Unlike many prespawn tournaments with hefty weights, this 30-pound-plus sack was weighed in July, when many fish typically are entering their lowest weight period of the year.

Visit www.agfc.com/atip to see the complete report and reports from the last decade. Tournament directors can also find an online reporting form to enter their tournament information on this page to help generate future reports.