WHITE River fly fishers are champing at the bit for the 2010 shad kill to fire, but the truth of the matter is the fishing is damn fine with the dribbles of shad coming through right now. And the real thing should unleash this week.
The Journal has spent 3 days on the river in the last 6 and on only one have we not landed at leasts one 20+” fish, and that was because my Texan buddy Rick got comprehensively beaten up by a monster brown above Cotter.
We were downstream Saturday tossing streamers but we spoke with Clint Wilkinson who was putting at the Dam in time to witness the first shad kill frenzy of the season.
“There were gulls diving and fish slashing the surface everywhere. But by the time I got my boat in and out there the pulse was done.”
It seems the lake conditions are cherry ripe, particularly after this week’s snow event, for some serious shad mayhem but we need flows. The Journal headed to the Dam Sunday, expecting a repeat performance but the water stayed just under 8000 cfs all day.
Still Robert Hime, from Rogers, and his son Mason landed 60-odd rainbows to 18″ the 21.5″ brown above and another nice 19″ brown for the day. Rainbow of the day went to one of our friends Chris Fowler who popped a rainbow in the 5-6lb class at Bull Shoals on a shad pattern.
Increases in flow will push more shad into the river triggering a bite, but its a fine line. Too many shad and the fish will become overstuffed and go off the bite. Yesterday it often appeared that the fish were waiting for the shad, but we still did well on a mix of shad and worm patterns.
This fat 21" brown took a worm on Tuesday
For the streamer addicts water flow is the key as well, plus having the heart to fish early and late. Rick Mangus banged the banks hard Saturday, with a bunch of heartbreaking slashes and follows early, before he turned the corner with a feisty 17″ brown.
But the middle of the day bit was a little slow until we got into some higher water and he stuck an absolute pig, which promptly rubbed the hook out in some heavy weed. But it was enough to keep him coming back, suddenly he realised what this game is all about.
Two of our mutual friends stuck it out until dark and finally managed three really nice browns and a good cutthroat on streamers, so its worth fishing the glory hour. And the year is just getting started.
Our fishing over the last week has been a little disrupted what with the Tye-A-Thon prelude and aftermath but some of our buddies got out and popped a few fish.
Rob Rummel, of the the Tye-A-Thon tyers, with two friends did really well on Sunday with several good browns streamer fishing on the White. This weekend a lot will depend upon the impact of tonight’s storm, how much snow or ice the area gains. Cold temperatures Saturday and Sunday won’t allow much of a thaw, but from Monday things should be moving well for the opening of the Bull Shoals Trophy zone.
WE have one spot left vacant in our streamer class on February 20th under the guidance of Michigan based streamer guide Alex Lafkas. Spend half the day in a classroom session including a fly tying demo and half a day on the river with one of our drift boat guides all for $200. Click here for more details. Call the store to book on 870 435 6166.
Then our buddy and fellow guide Jimmy Traylor called with a vacancy in his Rivercliff Cabin over the same weekend. Rivercliff is a sweet place to stay, right on the river just below Dew Eddy Shoal, only a 1.5 miles from Bull Shoals Dam. Call 870-431-7777 to book this and mention where you saw our plug for a deal.
ONE of most anticipated events on the White River calendar is almost upon us and anticipation is in the air. The portents and omens look good, very very good indeed indeed eerily close to last year’s pattern which fed a monster month long shad kill.
First off you need the shad, and a high water for the last couple of years allows the shad number to skyrocket. We were getting reports pre-Christmas of bass fishers marking huge schools of shad on Bull Shoals Lake. Second thing is waterflow, both to bring the shad to this end of the lake _ and then bringing them through the turbines. Thirdly we need enough cold weather to cool the lake surface temps down to the magic number around 42 degrees to weaken the shad.
Twelve months ago today North Arkansas was in the grip of a major ice storm, well look what we have in the forecast, hopefully not as destructive an icestorm but certainly a pretty decent winter storm is about to hit tonight. Hopefully it will trigger a shad kill, and kick off a great 2010 season.
Our guides are getting lots of calls for to fish the kill through February, we suggest you move fast if you want to be certain to secure particular dates. Our of our guides scored a bunch of 20″ and better trout last year and know the kill routine.
But none was better than John Arthur’s 27″ female fishing with guide Clint Wilkinson
We always enjoy RA Beattie’s films, and this clip from his latest project “Off the Grid” will take you back to the joys of summer as we battle through the winter storm due this weekend.
Here’s what RA has to say
We are currently shooting and editing our new film titled “Off the Grid.” Shot in Mexico, Alaska, British Columbia, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Florida and a few surprise locations.
This fly fishing film is about places that are off the beaten path. It is about people that live the fly fishing lifestyle, not to be a name, but because fly fishing is part of their soul. It is about unspoken hatches, unknown fish, and Rivers that will go unnamed. This new film will be available on DVD in July 2010.
A HUGE thanks to all of you who came along, brought food, purchased raffle tickets, sent in donations and tied flies for Saturday’s Tye-A-Thon for the Tiffany Johnson Benefit.
Incredibly we raised over $3500 for the Benefit, plus tied a bunch of flies (and received a swag of other items) for the Benefit Online Auction at the end of the month. And according to all those who rolled along had a great time doing so.
It was also fantastic to see Tiffany come along, with a 4-hour leave pass to visit her new home and come along to the Tye-A-Thon. I know she anc Chad were overwhelmed by the support and effort that y’all put in.
First prize and the Monster Fly Collection went to long-time friend of the flyshop, Mary Kay Cauldwell of Memphis. Second prize went to Bell Holloway, also of Memphis and thrd prize to Rob Uselton of Jonesboro. Chad incidentally had taught Beth’s nephew to fly fish on Dry Run Creek and Rob has been another regular in the shop for many years.
We are still awaiting a few flies to land before we deliver the prizes to the winners
Now we have a few people to thank:
Mark Romero from Swallow’s Nest Fly Tyers whose “crazy” idea for a Charity Tye-A-Thon coalesced into this event and his wife Misako’s for her thoughtful thank you cards to each tyer. They were both tying stalwarts all day
Carrie Simmons, owner of the Mountain River Fly Shop who allowed us to use the Fly Shop facilities and the online store to sell tickets.
Faye Clarke, for her indefatiguable effort behind the scenes, giving up her day off to come into work and especially for filling out hundreds of raffle tickets from online and phone orders.
Davy Wotton and Teresa Van Winkle, who pulled together flies from some huge names in the business to join the effort, promoted the event through their facebook pages and and then spent 12 hours each at the tying table. You can see one of the results above.
Joey Puckett for his humor, friendship and his deer chilli and for organising the table and chairs plus the grace and fine cornbread of his employer Chelsey Reger at Clutter Junkies.
Bill and Sara Thorne and Marc Poulos for their chilli and assistance in the running.
WE have mentioned a few times over the past couple of years the availability of Webcams to enable you to checkout river and weather conditions in real time. Well we finally got around to pulling them all together into one easy location here .
You can check out conditions in the catch and release section immediatelybelow Bull Shoals, at Newlands Lodge and His Place Resort on the White, covering some 16 miles of river, and of course from Gene’s Trout Resort on Norfork.
LAST weekend was a hoot for a bunch of folks with some big browns and a bunch of browns coming to hand on streamers and drift rigs.
But the new week signalled a shift in generation flows, with some lower overnight and middle of the day flows. Bull Shoals lake is now down to half a foot over power pool, Norfork 4″. The Corp is aiming to drop Beaver Lake hard, 6″ a day running the generators wide open around the clock over the next 2 weeks. The Beaver water will eventually be pushed through Bull Shoals.
But the warmer weather this week, producing a drop in power demand, plus some rainfall downstream all added up to some slower flows. We have had several people through the shop this week confidently predicting low water this weekend. The Journal, having confidence dashed by the vagaries of the Corp once too often, isn’t bold enough to make that call, but we are heading in the right direction.
The warmer weather also has the oracles of the 2010 shad kill scratching their brows, will it, won’t it and when. Regardless of the vagaries we do have some very good fishing right now, afterall 2 24″ browns, a bunch of 20s and a host of 17″-19″ browns in a few days is some good stuff. The secret is to deal with the conditions you get and make the most of it.
IF you are a Texas redfisher and the Gulf Coast is blownout cold and nasty where do you head; the White River and some brown trout mayhem of course.
John Boatwright and his buddies Kevin Vincent and Greg Gardiner have known each other a long time. John and Kevin fish the reds regularly Greg is a more recent convert to the fly. They were scheduled to hit the Louisiana Coast last weekend for their annual trip together, but the forecast was ugly. Instead they headed north due to a internet community connection with the Journal. Guides Marc Poulos and Clint Wilkinson joined the party to get these guys into fish.
The guys hit it pretty good though they had to earn every brown, though everyone managed at least one 20″ brown and some smaller fish. The really big fish eluded us but I’d reckon Kevin will remember the two hawgs he raised on Friday for a long time. His eyes were seriously big when he looked back down the boat towards me in the aftermath.
Kevin Vincent and a nice brown within minutes of leaving Rim Shoals access
John Boatwright wanted something big, and yellow on the end of his streamer line last weekend but this probably wasn’t in his wildest dreams.
We filled you in on John’s trip with his friends to the White River last weekend. But we thought this capture deserved some special attention. Marc Poulos was floating John down a sidechannel looking for some big browns late in the day.
John let his orange colored dungeon fly drop down to a deep hole and came tight to something heavy, flashing gold. Marco playing guide psychologist was trying to calm John’s adrenaline rush, “ah its a big carp” , not expecting his teasing to be proven right.
As it happened John was pretty chuffed to have scored such a nice common carp. Goes to show you never know what is going to happen tossing streamers.
Tucker and Wise at a waypoint on the Odyssey _ TUcker/Wise photo
Our irrepressible Missouri mate Brian Wise and Matt Tucker have been at it again, showing off the trout streams of their home State in the Missouri Trout Odyssey 2009. The boys are planning releasing one video a week, we plan on enjoying them all.
We will let Matt fill you in:
What started as an idea to fish the trout streams along Hwy 63 in southern Missouri during early 2008, transformed to the 2008 Missouri Trout Odyssey where Brian Wise and I fished 20 of Missouri’s 21 public trout streams (we would have fished all 21 of them last year, except the stream that flows through Fort Leonard Wood requires a class prior to access…..and we had too many streams and too little time). With last year’s trip over Thanksgiving weekend under our belt, it wasn’t a question if we could pull off such a feat again in 2009, it was more of a question what we could do different, as there were several streams last year we would have liked to have fished harder but didn’t and with that, in September 2009 the plan was hatched to do the trip again…….
The more I hear, and see of the MO trout streams, the more I want to take some time and explore some of these rivers. I’ve always found a joy in new water, from when I was a greenhorn roaming the thousands of backcountry waters on my home island of Tasmania to the years hitting glamor US rivers and streams as a fly fishing writer.
On the other hand living on and fishing consistently fine trout water year after year build a depth of knowledge, the seasons and cycles, that you can’t get any other way. An ideal life might deliver you both.
Gabe Levin and Clayton Murphy nailed a pair of 24″ browns on streamers late last week to start off the 2010 streamer season in fine style.
Gabe was fishing with our mate and erstwhile smallmouth-guru-in-training Ben on Wednesday. Gabe was tossing a leadeyed double bunny of his own design when it was slammed by this hook-jawed male.
Clayton is one of the skippers of the Missouri drift boat crew who base themselves in Cotter, which includes regulars on these pages Steve Stinnett and Dennis Gammon. These guys spend a lot of time tossing streamers for big browns, they have all been on here before.
Ben’s best known of course for his smallmouth and carp guiding and tying exploits but what’s lesser known is Ben’s experience guiding and working for Mike Lawson’s Henry’s Fork Angler in Idaho.
You will be seeing a lot more of Ben around the shop this year, as he joins Marc Poulos and Kevin Brandtonies in relieving Chad and the Journal when needed. Ben’s good people!
