OZARKS & MID-SOUTH FISHING MAP
Fishing Hot Spots
Clear Ozark reservoirs and cold trout tailwaters: Table Rock, Taneycomo, Lake of the Ozarks and Truman in Missouri, Bull Shoals, the White River, Norfork, Beaver, Greers Ferry, the Little Red, Ouachita and Hamilton in Arkansas, and Reelfoot and Dale Hollow in Tennessee. Tap any star or dot to see what it is and what to fish there.
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Fishing & access
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Parks & rules
Safety: these are planning references. Use current official charts, weather and marine alerts and proper safety equipment before heading out.
Lake guides for this map
Month-by-month patterns, fish, ramps and rules for each water:
Fishing Hot Spots by area
Lakes and rivers. Tap one to fly to it on the map.
Clear lakes and trophy trout
The Ozarks are full of big, clear reservoirs where largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, crappie, walleye and striped bass all live together. Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Norfork, Beaver, Greers Ferry and Ouachita are the best known.
Below the big dams, the water stays cold enough for trout: Lake Taneycomo at Branson, the White River at Cotter, the Norfork tailwater and the Little Red River at Heber Springs, which once gave up the world-record brown trout. Dale Hollow, on the Tennessee–Kentucky line, holds the world-record smallmouth.
Rules: each state sells its own license, and Missouri and Arkansas require a trout permit. Dam releases can raise tailwater levels fast; always check the generation schedule.
BigJoe’s gear for Ozarks & Mid-South
What BigJoe would bring to fish these waters.
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Map sources & checks
- Coverage
- Ozarks & Mid-South. Mapped features come from public datasets and can be incomplete or out of date: a missing reef, ramp or wreck does not mean it is not there.
- Map data
- OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) — retrieved October 7, 2026
- World Database on Protected Areas (UNEP-WCMC & IUCN), Protected Planet — retrieved October 7, 2026 (license: Protected Planet terms)
- Hot spots
- 14 hot spots, each with its own source (tap any star to see it): OpenStreetMap/Nominatim named place (general position, not a pinpoint) (14).
- Protected areas
- 7 protected areas from the official list above, drawn in dashed red. Fishing rules inside them are set by the managing agency; check with them before you fish.
- Chart layers (Charts button)
- GEBCO ocean depth and OpenSeaMap buoys, lights and markers. GEBCO and OpenSeaMap are useful references, not official navigation charts.
- Weather & tides
- See Weather & Tides for this area: NOAA/NWS forecasts, NOAA buoys and NOAA Tides & Currents, with Open-Meteo models where NOAA has no station.
- Dates
- This page last updated October 15, 2026. Each dataset keeps its own retrieval date, shown above.
⚠️ Planning reference only, not for navigation. Use current official charts, weather and marine alerts, and proper safety gear before heading out.
See something wrong or missing? Tell us and we will check it against the source.