There are certain streams that just haunt you.  The North Fork of the White River is mine.  The stream is about as scenic as you can get in the Ozarks and just screams Missouri Ozark stream.  However, after more than a 1/2 dozen trips there I was really beginning to wonder if there were damn trout in the river, or if my buddy Brian Wise was just pimping me out with fish photos shot elsewhere.

Well, after promises of Pork Chops in a white wine reduction sauce, served over a bed of wild rice, with fresh 7 grain bread and apple cobbler for desert being cooked streamside in a dutch oven combined with tthe fact that Brian kept screaming that I was finally going to get to see the river at something other than dead low if I came down to fish on 2/21/09, I felt obligated.  After all, how can anyone pass up a stream side lunch like that right?

I rolled into the metropolis of Gainesville, MO about 10:00pm on Friday night.  We caught up for a bit, but I was pretty tired, having been up since 4:30am this morning, so I hurridly crashed on his futon.  I was however suspect though, as I didn’t see any of the cooking supplies or smell any of Jenni Wise’s food goodness that she wips up in her kitchen……so i knew I was going to get fucked out of a perfectly good stream side lunch.  Damn it, the fishing better be good I thought as I finally passed out from being too tired.

5:00am comes early when you are a 350lb man sleeping on a futon meant for a kid.  Nothing feels better than sitting up after a night of that.  But it beat the hell out of camping or sleeping in the car, which leads me to believe that I just like to bitch for the shear fact of bitching.  Nice.

We were loaded with Brian’s clacka hooked up in no time and by 6am we were sitting in Skeeter’s restaurant being served a heart attack on a plate to fill our souls on this ass cold morning.

We rolled into Kelly’s Ford access on the North Fork of the White River by 6:40am and were soon launching the boat and storing our gear when it decided to snow.  Life was good.  The day started out as a typical day on the North Fork of the White River starts out for me, with no fish at the first hole we stopped at.  This however, would prove to be only a fluke as once in the boat we proceeded to hook up with ease at every stop and run that we fished.  Some runs, thanks to Wise’s generousity on the oars, he would row my fat ass upstream and we would do it again.  The first drift we did that, I went 3 for 3 on consecutive drifts.  Nice.

It was a good day on the river and I learned a few things.  Dropper rigs suck ass.  I can’t tie them worth a shit, but man are they effective.  I also learned that you need to fish this river deep, which would explain why my previous attempts at ignoring Brian’s suggestions of fishing deep and my stubborness at wanting to prove him wrong by catching a fish out of his river on a turks tarantula have proved useless.

In the end it was a great day on the river with a ton of fish caught and twice as many missed.  The North Fork of the White at 740cfs fishes rediculous out of a drift boat (but a highside won’t clear the bridges), and it was a great day with a really good friend.

As for lunch, well….it was beef jerkey, poweraide, and combos…..what more do you need when you are catching fish.

[Show as slideshow]

1 2 3 ►