The White River National Wildlife Refuge is divided into North and South units, which lie above and below state Route 1. Portions of the rambling refuge, which includes 90 miles of river in a three- to 10-mile-wide corridor, are in Arkansas, Desha, Monroe and Phillips counties. Some of the more accessible lakes in the North Unit include Crowfoot, Sandy Bayou, Brown Shanty and Willow; on the south side, check out Alligator, East Moon, Wolf, Fish, Burnt, Escronges and Bear.

The refuge visitor's center is on state Route 1 at St. Charles, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service encourages everyone who uses the refuge to stop by for maps, check water levels and current conditions, and get advice from the staff before proceeding into some of the wildest country remaining in North America. A free refuge user permit is required; you can pick them up at the visitor center or at five kiosks on main roads. For more information, call refuge manager Dennis Sharp at (870) 282-8200 or check out the refuge's excellent Web site at www.fws.gov/whiteriver.

Skinny 240-acre Burnt Cane Lake, Farwick's next crappie hotspot, has been "a phenomenal crappie lake the past two or three years and should be excellent," he said. It slithers like a snake between its dam on the St. Francis River and a ditch that diverts excess water from the river in central St. Francis County. With an average depth of 15 feet and holes to 25, expect to dangle your minnows and jigs a bit deeper than usual compared with the more shallow lakes that typify AGFC waters in this part of the state.

"It receives a lot of pressure, but it produces a lot of crappie," Farwick said. "I consider a 10-inch crappie a good fish, and it has a lot of fish that size and some over 10 inches." The AGFC's ramp is on the west end of the lake, south of Widener and off County Road 173.

Anglers on Horseshoe Lake, a Mississippi River oxbow, should find this year's crappie fishing a bit more challenging because "they turned on 10 wells, and heavy rains (last year) brought it back to full pool," Farwick said. In recent years, low water made launching difficult, but it also concentrated the fish, allowing prodigious catches. "Lots of people were getting tickets for (being) over the limit, and the crappie limit there is 50," he said.

"The average crappie there years ago was 8 inches, but that stunted population has somehow turned around," Farwick continued. "A lot of it seems to be that they get a spring rise and good recruitment, and it's always been a very rich system. Maybe the bass, gar and bowfin reduced the population when the water was low -- just like when we do a drawdown to let predators thin stunted fish." Regardless of the reasons, expect to catch good numbers of crappie in Horseshoe this year despite pressure from previous years.

Most of the structure on Horseshoe is manmade in the form of docks along the shore and the brush, Christmas trees or bamboo in buckets of concrete that owners sink off the docks. The three private ramps on Horseshoe Lake are off state Route 147 in southern Crittenden County.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
The AGFC's Arkansas Outdoor Atlas, an $18 set of county maps, is a great -- albeit somewhat unwieldy -- desk reference, but we also like the agency's new online maps. Go to www.agfc.com, click on "Data, Facts & Maps," and then check out a variety of services, including a link to load Google Earth on your PC and interactive maps of Arkansas.