The Lower Illinois has long been my favorite striper fishery in Oklahoma for several reasons. There are lots of striped bass there. Big stripers can be caught. And you can use a variety of tackle, including light tackle, to fish there.

A few professional fishing guides work this area regularly and produce trophy stripers for their clients. Most of them rely almost exclusively on live bait, either free-lining big shad or live rainbow trout for bait or fishing those same baits beneath corks.

Some anglers troll crankbaits with good results. But my favorite technique there is one that fishing guide J.B. Bennett of Okmulgee uses most of the time. It calls for using medium- to light-weight spinning tackle and small jigs.

Bennett fishes the jigs along the shorelines and around the dropoffs. He fishes both the main channel and the backwaters of the Lower Illinois. On occasion, he'll ply his jigs in the waters of the much larger Arkansas River, just outside the mouth of the Illinois.

The small jigs are fished much as a bass fisherman fishes a bass jig or plastic worm: casting near stickups or along sloping shorelines and then swimming or hopping it carefully back toward the boat, maintaining a constant "feel" for the jig as it bounces or swims. The jigs, usually weighing 1/4 ounce or less, are fished on 10-pound or lighter line. That may seem light for striper fishing, but using heavier line usually cuts down noticeably on the number of strikes.

The Webbers Falls and Robert S. Kerr dams on the Arkansas River, as well as the W.D. Mayo dam downstream, all offer some excellent chances to catch walleyes and saugers early in the year. The Lower Illinois River also holds plenty of walleyes and saugers, many of which move up from out of the Arkansas River.

Besides those tailrace areas below the dams, there are numerous wing dams and jetties along the navigation channel of the Arkansas. Currents eddying around those riprapped structures attract walleyes and saugers.

Minnows freelined or fished beneath corks probably represent the most effective bait for catching both species. Small jigs, like those many Oklahomans use for crappie fishing, can also be effective.

The worst part about this fishing is that, years ago, the ODWC imposed a ludicrous length limit on both walleyes and saugers that prevents anglers from keeping many of the nice pan-sized fish they catch. In an effort to protect until spawning age both the hatchery-produced "saugeyes" that the department stocks in central and Western Oklahoma reservoirs and some of the walleyes stocked in reservoirs, a statewide 18-inch minimum-length limit was imposed on both walleyes and saugers.

A fisheries biologist from Minnesota, where both walleyes and saugers are very popular species, was incredulous when I told him about the 18-inch minimum-length limit in Oklahoma. As the sauger is a slow-growing species and produces few specimens greater than 15 or 16 inches, he noted, such a limit would pretty much constitute a ban on keeping saugers. He insisted that I had to be mistaken about the limit - so I mailed him a copy of our state fishing regulations.

White bass spend much of the year in reservoirs, but come spring, they move up into the flowing rivers and streams that fill those lakes. Like their striped bass relatives, white bass spawn in moving water. But before they leave the lakes to swim up the feeder streams, they often gather in large numbers in coves along the upper reaches of the lakes.

When March rolls around at Lake Keystone, anglers can often find white bass (or "sand bass," as we usually call them) in heavy concentrations in coves along the Cimarron and Arkansas River arms of the lake.

Both rivers have long east-west stretches as they enter the lake. Coves on the north sides of the river in those areas warm up faster in the spring than do the coves on the south sides. The northside coves get direct sunlight unobstructed by shoreline trees, and the sun-warmed surface, pushed by the south winds that prevail in this area, often makes the coves on the north side of a lake several degrees warmer. Accordingly, the warmer northside coves along the Cimarron and Arkansas at Keystone tend to hold many more sand bass.

Small jigs, small spinners or crankbaits can be very effective for catching these pre-spawners. My personal favorite has been a white marabou-tailed jig with a fluorescent red head.

Want to fill a stringer with big slab-sided crappie? Well, you're in luck: It's doodlesockin' time at Lake Eufaula!

Crappie spawn in waves throughout the period from February on into early May in various Oklahoma lakes. The peak of spawning activity at several lakes - including Eufaula, the "Gentle Giant" - seems to be in mid-April.

When crappie are spawning or searching for places to spawn, dabbling a jig around shallow-water cover like flooded willow thickets, laydown logs, buttonbushes, or just about any other cover in the shallows can fill a stringer with crappie. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of spots along this 102,000-acre lake's shorelines where crappie spawn.

Just about any kind of jig will work, but in April, I find, tube jigs are the most effective. If I had to choose a single style of jig, I'd pick a 1/16-ounce jig dressed with a black/chartreuse tube. I've also had good results with red/chartreuse, red/black, pink, and plum.

Doodlesocking - the best way to load up on slabs here now - is wonderfully simple. Use a long rod, drop 18 or 20 inches of line down from the tip with a jig attached and then dabble the jig slowly around all visible cover, probing from the surface to the bottom.

You may catch crappie in water so shallow that you'll wonder how they keep their backs from sticking out of the water. At Eufaula, it's rare that you have to fish any more than 3 feet deep for spawners. You can doodlesock from a boat, but donning a pair of waders is the best approach.

Go get a calendar and find the weekend closest to the full moon in May. Circle that weekend in red - and plan to go fishing then!

Many anglers in various regions argue about what is the tastiest fish to eat. In the South, crappie usually get most of the votes. But as for me, and several of my fishing friends, I'll take bluegills. Give me a mess of bluegills big enough to cut into boneless filets and then let me at the skillet!

Bluegills don't have to be spawning in order for you to catch them. But because they tend to spawn in clusters of beds, wherever they find a suitable bottom at suitable depths, you can find concentrations of bluegill during the spawn.

You can catch them on a fly rod using popping bugs or nymphs. You can catch them using small jigs or spinners. You can even catch them on miniature crankbaits and jerkbaits. But bait-fishing is the most effective technique. Worms are good, but nothing beats a bucket of crickets if you're setting out to fill an ice chest with bluegills.

You can fish them on a tight line, with a small bell sinker on the end of your line and a hook tied a few inches higher on a dropper. But unless the 'gills are spawning really deep, I prefer to use a slip-cork rig. I use a No. 8 or 10 hook - bluegills have small mouths - on 6-pound line. Above the hook I add one small split shot, and above that a small slip-cork.

You can catch big 'gills throughout spring and summer, but May is by far the best month for bluegill fishing.

June is spawning time for channel cats at lakes throughout Oklahoma. That means these tasty creatures will be gathered along shorelines wherever spawning habitat is available.

Lakes with lots of riprapped shorelines - along highways, around bridges, on the faces of dams, etc. - are good places to fish for spawning channel cats. Lakes like Grand Lake that have lots of areas with rocky shorelines offering nesting spots for spawners are also good.

Fishing for spawning channel cats is an annual tradition for many anglers at Grand. Some use rods and reels, but many spread trotlines or limblines along the lakeshores.

At other times of the year, tight-lining with prepared baits on flat, smooth lake bottoms can be an effective way to catch channel cats. But at this time of year, suspending baits beneath bobbers, then retrieving them very slowly along riprapped shores or around rocky banks can be even more effective.

A variety of baits can work. Worms or night crawlers, shrimp, cut shad, shad gizzards, minnows, crawfish or crawfish tails, stink baits . . . the list is long. For rod-and-reel fishing, I prefer cut shad or live night crawlers. For trotlines or limblines, I like shiner minnows or live crawfish