Top Anglers Name Secret Fishing Holes (Kind of)

“Would you look at the shad in that cove?” my fishing buddy Buck Buchanan pondered.

It was hard not to look at them. Threadfin shad were being thrashed and tossed onto the banks of Broken Bow Lake by large schools of largemouth and spotted bass. The sounds of splashing were so loud we wondered if there was a motor creating all the commotion. Then we started casting. And then we started catching. While the shad assault continued.

“Shad Murder Cove,” Buck dubbed the place. And with those three words, Shad Murder Cove became a permanent part of our lingo. When we look at our Broken Bow lake map and figure out where we are going to fish the next morning, we can see names such as Linson Creek, Carson Creek and Egypt Creek. But Shad Murder Cove will never be on a map, and as far as I know, Buck and I are the only ones who know what that means. It’s kind of our code talk.

These stories and names exist between fishing buddies and groups of anglers all over the country. It is part of the fabric and folklore of the fishing experience. As much as the names of our favorite fishing lures – Spooks, Pop-Rs, Torpedoes, Hula Poppers – are important to us, the names of our fishing spots are equally as important. And it’s how we talk to each other. In code.

Take Bassmaster Elite Series pro Luke Palmer, for example. Luke is from Coalgate, Oklahoma. It’s a small town. Probably more cattle than people. Luke’s code talk is “Big Fish Hole.” There are many big fish holes, but there’s only one Big Fish Hole. “Only my dad and a buddy of mine know where this is!” Luke said as he laughed.

Jason Christie, another top Elite pro, said there were several places in Oklahoma named by his fishing family members.

“My Uncle Chooch said years ago that we were gonna fish a tournament and we were going to the ‘Little Bank,’” Jason said. “It’s a 100-yard stretch of slate. We have caught truckloads of bass off of it over the last 35 years.”

While the Little Bank cashed checks for the Christies, the Flippin’ Hole was not to be outdone. “We had a stretch of willows on Tenkiller that was known as the Flippin’ Hole,” Jason said. “There would be three or four teams of Christies in the tournaments, and it was usually a race between family to get there first. At least half of the spring tournaments were won off those willows!”

Another Okie, Chad Warner, the Vice President of Brand Management for Lurenet, said one of his go-to places to fish on his favorite lake is the “Hog Pen.” But it’s not named that because of the big fish that have been caught there. “It was actually a hog pen before the lake flooded,” Warner said. “It’s a location where the bass go to spawn due to the hard bottom and lily pad stems.” Chad’s friend group knows where this is. Everyone else, not so much!

For legendary angler Bill Dance, there’s a little-known spot on Pickwick Lake you won’t find on a map. His code talk for it is “Pickwick Two.”

“It’s a channel ledge on the Tennessee River that has only two gigantic stumps in 12 feet of water dropping off into 52 feet of water. And it always produces two bass!”

Further east on the Tennessee River, my brother, Billy Stanton, discovered a name for another place. This one’s on Wilson Lake. Billy was fishing with friend Randy Bolin when it happened.

“We were drifting generators and noticed a yellow jug that apparently was being used to jug for catfish. It was hung in the rocks,” Billy said. “While we were looking up at the jug, we pulled up a smallmouth about five pounds. I said, ‘dang, first smallmouth of the day.’

“We lined up between generators Two and Three so we could drift the same pass, and when we came past the yellow jug, we caught another smallmouth the same size. I asked, ‘What kind of jug is that?’ Randy said, ‘Prestone.’

“We marked it on the GPS as Prestone, and every time I go down there, he asks how things were at Prestone!”

In Arkansas, long-time friend Chris Elder of Mount Ida knows all the local haunts on Lake Ouachita. While many people know about “Hamburger and Hot Dog” – two islands near Mountain Harbor Resort – few know about Devil’s Hole, Huffin’ Hole, Hog Alley, the Brad Hall Hole and others. Then there’s the C.K. Bennett Hole.

Chris’ good friend Mark Davis, the 1995 BASSMASTER Classic Champion and Angler of the Year, started his fishing career as a guide on Lake Ouachita. For a few years, he was struggling to make ends meet and was struggling to catch fish. One day, he took one of his customers, C.K. Bennett, fishing. “He was an old man an wore an oxygen mask,” Chris said. “He told Mark this would be his last fishing trip.”

The day started out tough as Mark struggled to catch fish. However, near the end of the day, Mark pulled up on a stump row and fish started breaking. “Mark tied on a crankbait for that old man, and he started catching fish,” Chris said. “Mark said Mr. Bennett would breathe some oxygen and then reel in another one.”

At the end of the trip, Bennett gave Davis an old cigar box before leaving and said it was the best day of fishing he’d ever had. But there were no cigars in the box – just 35 $100 bills! “That kind of set Mark on his path to becoming a great pro fisherman. That was a lot of money back in the 1980s.” And the C.K. Bennett Hole lives on to a small group in Montgomery County, Arkansas.

In the 1990s, I developed a friendship with Jim Gowing, the legendary lure designer at PRADCO. Jim would take me fishing on Lake Dardanelle, and he had names for just about every spot we fished.

While there are hundreds of underwater jetties up and down the Arkansas River, there was only one “Underwater Jetty.” And there was Black Point. And there was Morton’s Hole. And the County Line Dike. And the Big Cut. And “The Cuts.” And so on, and so on. And when Jim spoke of any of these, I knew exactly where he was talking about. And that code talk is how we communicated about Dardanelle.

Brent Haggard, an Oklahoma tournament angler, has also fished Dardanelle for a long time. “We have a pocket called ‘The Money Hole,’” Brent said. “My dad won a Memorial Day tournament on it. I still call it that every time I drive by it, but it’s silted in now. We have another special bank on Dardanelle called ‘T-Post.’ There is a set of T-Posts on it, and it has won us tons of money!”

Further down the Arkansas River, my friend Buck, who doubles as the head football coach at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, bestowed the name “Wildlife Hole” on one of his river haunts.

“Every time I went to that place, it seemed there was always a raccoon, beaver, deer, otter, some type of waterfowl,” he said. “There was always wildlife there, so one day I looked at David Batson (a former Hendrix assistant who was fishing with him) and said, ‘since there is always some type of wildlife in here, we are just going to call this the Wildlife Hole!’”

Buck also fishes night tournaments on Lake Hamilton in Central Arkansas, and he came up with another name one night when fishing with partner Randy Brooks.

“This old boy couldn’t quit coughing one night while we were fishing,” Buck said. “We thought he was going to die! So, we named that place the Coughing Hole!”

Buck kind of summed up the thought behind naming places and talking in code with your fishing buddies: “It’s great to have a common vernacular with folks that you can use without everyone else knowing what you’re talking about!”