White River (Mountain Home, AR) — June 26, 2005

Sunday morning I got up at 4am and was packed my bags and headed to the parking lot of the Ramada Inn in Mountain Home, Arkansas. It was the last day of a great trip, the only thing that I had to look forward to now was a few hours on the river before a long drive back to St. Louis. I met up with Kris Maurer in the parking lot, and we hit the McDonald’s drive through and drove to the White River below Bull Shoals Dam to meet Tom Rogers (TNT Fishing Service) at the parking lot at 5:30am. It was a quiet Sunday morning, and we were the first ones to arrive at the parking lot. We opted to wet wade and were in the process of rigging our rods when Tom pulled in (early as usual — or in fisherman’s terms, right on time). We were going to throw large dry flies to the cruising risers this morning in the fog. We headed out to the water and began systematically casting and wading our way into the river in a line. Within the first couple of casts, I had a strike but no hookup. As we stood in the water and fog, it was amazing to see and hear the number of fish rising. It was one of those unique moments where you know that there is no better place to be anywhere at that exact moment. As the sun began to cook some of the fog off of the water, I tied on a #8 stimulator and continued to work the water. I was rewarded with a 16″ – 17″ Cutthroat. I continued with this fly until the fog had completely burned off the water, picking up one more decent sized rainbow. I then switched to a #18 tan colored scud (one might call it Trout Crack) and fished it under about 2ft of indicator and was rewarded with two additional fish for a total of 4 fish in about 3.5 hours on the water. Because of the long drive back to St. Louis, I said my goodbye to Kris Maurer and Tom and I walked out to the ramp. After a quck yell to Matt Pedersen and Renee to say good bye, I was at my car and was putting up the fly rod and stowing away my gear when Jim Traylor came up and we chatted for a bit. As he headed back to his fishermen, I headed for the long drive back to St. Louis. Man do I hate I-44 construction, it took me almost 6hrs to make the trip back.