The fishing gods must sense our despair, for they took pity on us.

After all, we had spent 10 grueling hours on the road where wrong turns and a so-called short cut added anxiety to our fish-deprived psyches. So, by the time we pulled on waders and readied our gear, the sun slipped behind the pine-covered mountains.

My two angling companions and I quietly approached the outer edge of a point where several jumbo shad flopped and rolled near the surface before fading into darkness below. Moments later, the same water shimmered as a school of smaller baitfish flashed nervously then darted away from two large boils of water.

In rhythmic fashion, I lifted the rod up and down, jogging the lure through the commotion. All at once the line tightened and the sound of drag echoed off a nearby bluff.  After three blazing runs, I landed and released a belly-busting, 33-inch striped bass.

A dozen of casts later, I felt the thump of a striper that immediately thrashed at the surface, showing a much larger frame.  This time the brute headed for a dense stand of submerged trees, forcing me to double the pressure. The line snaps.

About the same time, Gregg Frey set the hook and locked horns with a fish about the same size of the one I landed earlier. But not until he lipped the striper do his shoulders drop, relieving tension from the intense battle and our long journey.

For Derek Mueller, Frey and me, it was a nice initiation to Lake Ouachita in southwestern Arkansas.

Lake Ouachita (pronounced WAH-shee-tah), 13 miles west of Hot Springs, Ark., is nationally known for producing mega-stripers. The 40,000-acre lake features an aquatic playground of islands, creeks, bays and points.  Located in the Ouachita National Forest, it is one of three connected reservoirs filled by the emerald-and-blue waters of the Ouachita River.

Striper addicts travel anywhere the bite is hot. Ouachita churns out  fish that weigh in the double-digits, and 30-pounders are regularly caught. There are periodic reports of fish in excess of 60 pounds.

Brett Hobbs, fisheries biologist for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, attributes the quality of stripers to the management plan for the lake.

The species has been in the lake since the late 1950s and stocked nearly every year since the late 1980s, Hobbs said. The fish don’t reproduce in the lake, so biologists basically recycle stripers by gill netting mature fish to use as brood stock. The hatchery fish are raised in a 23-acre “nursery pond” near Ouachita that can be drained directly into the big lake.

While it was nice to know how the stripers got in the lake, we were more interested in catching them.

On our first full day, we waded in areas close to a striper’s deep-water comfort zones. Bottom topography containing several levels of stairlike descents with a mixture of hard rock and clay can be ideal for landbound anglers hoping to find the open-water fish.

Using a detailed lake map, we located points fitting our criteria, which project into the north and south forks of the lake. The forks feature twists, turns and spring water slightly warmer than the main lake.

Without direct access to the lake from the main road, we had to walk nearly three-fourths of a mile over rugged hills and dense forest to reach prime spots.

A stiff, late-afternoon breeze reduced glare penetrating the water, which allowed light-sensitive stripers to rise and search for prey near the surface. Seconds after pumping the jig erratically off one of these points, a fish clamped down and swam wildly back and forth. After landing another fat striper, it was  Mueller’s turn to test-drive a jig through the same water, and he connected for the second target fish of the day.

We gave each spot around 20 minutes to produce. In most cases stripers seemed to cruise in pods of two or three active fish. It was as if they utilized the “fun and gun” approach of locating an easy meal before fanning tails to another area.

The action slowed around lunchtime, but we got a humorous distraction when a snapping turtle tried to climb Mueller’s leg. When the snapper’s head popped up at mid-chest, Mueller tumbled backward to make a soggy escape. He forgot being wet, however, when he landed a 5-pound-plus largemouth.

Craig Condello manages a study design team for MDS Pharma Services in Lincoln. Fishing for stripers and striped-bass hybrids takes him to at least three states per year.