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This was my first time to Arkansas, but both Jeff Cole and Jeff Boks that I was fishing with have been multiple times before and had never seen anything like this. January/February are usually prime months due to energy demand meaning the rivers usually are full of water and perfect for floating and pulling streamers. Extremely low lake levels and warmer than average temps, however, had the rivers looking pathetic and for the most part not even floatable with a drift boat. 12 hours from home meant we didn't have many options so we just sucked it up and decided to make the best of what we had available. We spent Friday night drinking good bourbon and beer and getting streamer boxes ready in the hope of some water releases in the morning.
We awoke Saturday morning to the grim reality, both the White and Norfork were totally bottomed out and streamer fishing was totally out of the picture. With virtually no options we did the only thing we could....rigged up the 5wts and headed to some shoals to nymph fish.
This turned out to be a good idea. It wasn't the way we had wanted to fish but at least it put bends in our rods and got us on the board. 6x fluro tippets with small sow bugs and zebra midges brought 15 rainbows to my hand with this guy being the best of the afternoon.
Cole working some slow deep water than held a ton of fish.
Beautiful scenery and 70 degree weather is pretty hard to complain about.
As the light started to fade I just sat on the banks and enjoyed the warm breeze and company.
Jeff picking out an egg pattern to try at the last run of the day.
And one more bow he brought to hand before we called it a day.
Our group finished we about 35 fish to hand so we felt pretty good about making something of nothing.
Sunday we were up by 5:45 am to head up to the Norfork. They were suppose to be running 1 unit all day which isn't alot but is enough to float and pull streamers. We met up with Larry who owns one of the local fly shops and put 2 boats in the water. Boks and Larry shoved off first and Cole and I followed a few hundred yards behind. Right off the bat I put a pair of small trout in the net on a big black rabbit leech.
In the next half hour I moved several more fish including a few in the 18+ inch range but didn't get a hook into any of them. Soon it was time to switch spots in the boat and I hopped on the sticks while Jeff got ready to strip some bugs.
Right away Jeff moved a 20+ in some deeper slower water. Not far downstream he moved another big brown that this time ate the fly and the battle was on. Some reel issues led to some scrambling in the boat and a minute later the hook pulled from a brown that would have more than likely gone 20-22 inches. Those are always heartbreaking to loose, but considering how little chances for decent water we had it was even worse. When it was my turn to throw again I switched to a cotton candy conrad and right away hooked a solid fish in a quick choppy chute. After a quick battle my first quality trout of the trip was in the net and I was thrilled to see it was a gorgeous cutthroat! 17 inches long and flaming colors, my largest cutt so far.
Another look...
Jeff with a rocky cliff in the background.
Unfortunately it was about this time we noticed that the water seemed to be dropping and it was now a struggle to get the boat through the shoal areas without banging rocks. We later found out that the unexpectedly cut the water off at 10am and we were literally running out of water for the second half of the float. Still we got a couple more decent fish before we reached the takeout.
Cole's meat box...
When we finally reached the takeout at the confluence with the White you could see that river had come down several feet from when we started.
We originally had plans to float this section twice as it was fairly short but with the generation shut down that was no longer an option. Larry told us our best bet would be to just continue on down the White. It was super low as well, but since it had a little added water from the Norfork it was at least floatable and was really our only option if we wanted to continue streamer fishing. The majority of the water was wide, flat, and featureless and we didn't do a lot of casting through areas that looked like this.
Luckily along the way there was some pretty scenery and this cliff was beautiful.
Every once and a while there would be some shoals and some deeper chutes and when we found those we found a fish or two. I managed 3 more smaller fish on a smaller zuddler pattern, the biggest of which was this 14 inch rainbow. I also rolled a bigger brown but never got a solid hookset.
In the last shoal we came to Jeff hit the fish of the trip on a yellow fathead. A viscious attack from shallow water and a spirited fight made this guy a trophy. He was just shy of the 20 inch mark and made the hard work all day worth it.
And the hero shot..
We didn't know it at the time, but that was the last fish of the trip. With more low to no water conditions predicted for the next 2 days and a severe blizzard warning for the entire midwest starting Monday morning we decided to get out of dodge early. After a pizza dinner in Mountain Home Jeff and I packed up shop and took of for an all night ride. We finally got back into GR around noon today and were completely tweaked out from about 30 hrs with no sleep.
Needless to say we were all extremely disappointed about having to cut the trip short and the miserable conditions we had when we were there but at least we made the best of it and still managed to have a good time. A new friend was made, new water was fished, and a few nice fish were brought to hand. All this means is I will need to go again next year when conditions are better.......
1 comments:
Great report and sorry the water levels didn't treat you well. Looks like some nice fish though and you got more fishing in than I've had lately so I'm jealous.
Great fishery, can't wait to get back again myself.
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