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FISH AND GAME IN PLENTY Oklahoma and Arkansas Fields Full of Game and Fish of Good Quality Western Oklahoma is the best quail country in America today writes an expert in the Saturday Evening Post In the eastern part of that state the country is rougher and less settled There deer and turkey still may be found upon occasion some quail many ducks and in this eastern region arc many streams little known to anglers which offer fine bass fishing The Osage country twentyfive years ago was the best chicken country one ever saw The Creeks Choctaws Cherokecs and Osages in the days before their lands were divided in sever ¬ ally occupied quite a little empire in which the game was by no means extinct extinctOf Of the gulf region of Texas and Louisiana most shooters have heard by reason of its extreme abundance in wild fowl during the winter months when the great flight has left the colder latitudes There is some oncn shooting to be had along the gulf coast and there are many fine wild fowl waters inland from the coast both in Texas and Louisiana Of the states mentioned Arkansas is perhaps the least known In southeastern Arkansas there are still some deer and turkey left in the lower canebrake lands and once in a while a bear may even yet be found Farther toward the interior of the state there is as good quail shooting as may be found anywhere Once the eastern prairie of Arkansas which was named after Duvals Bluff swarmed with tirairie chickens but they were long ago practically exterminated and today all that country is sown in rice which in turn serves to feed the visiting hordes of migratory fowl there being good pickings left after the crop is harvested harvestedI I presume that the St Francis River and its bayous afford the most remarkable black bass water in America today In the upper portions of the St Francis the small mouth bass flourishes The big mouth alone is found in the lower portions but it takes the fly like a gentlcmaiii none the less Southern anglers have not yet turned extensively to fly fishing I met but one exclusive fly fisherman in Arkansus during my last visit there but there are scores of places in Arkansas where one can fish for bass almost under trouting conditions In Missouri the rainbow trout has been planted with great success and the same experiment perhaps may later be made by the state of Arkansas in some of the Ozark streams which ought to be cold enough to carry trout Such famous bass fishing places at Lake Chicot whose great island was once the estate of Austin Corbin are of themselves enough to make a state famous Chicot is a beautiful blue clear lake and in a magnificent sporting country countryAlong Along the bayous of the White River itself a great sporting stream Arkansas anglers get mag ¬ nificent bass fishing That stream may get back its back up twenty feet or so every year which means that the bayous and adjoining lakes are all stocked anew annually with black bass Thus far the fishing has seemed pcrcnially good
