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By MattTucker, January 12, 2012 9:03 pm

It seems that the North Fork of the White River is pretty hot right now.  With Brian Wise, Justin Spencer, myself, and several others are posting photos on local forums of all the big fish the river has been giving up recently; the stream is definitely getting some good press (there also was an article in the latest issue of Fly Fisherman by Zach Matthews featuring friends of the OC (Brian Wise, Kyle Kosovich, and Randy Hanner).  The only saving grace about the press the river is getting, is that it is so damn hard to get to from all of the populated areas in Missouri and Arkansas.  It helps to keep the crowds down.

With all that being said, and the fishing being red hot, I found myself back on the North Fork of the White River this past weekend with a couple of streamer addicts that I met over the internet (Dan Held and Paul Chausse).  Dan and Paul are good guys, even if they are flatlanders, and they offered to swing by my house on the way through STL to pick me up and afforded me the first trip in a long time that I didn’t drive on……and it was damn nice.

We ended up staying at River of Life Farm on the banks of the North Fork of the White River.  With the “Winter Rates”, the place is an affordable fish camp with some high end luxuries.  It is a bit tougher to cook potatoes o’brien, scrambled eggs, and biscuits and gravy while tent camping along the river; but it was easy peasy this past weekend.

The weekend was a streamer weekend, and Dan and Paul came prepared.  We were fishing big nasty schlappin inspired streamers.  On Saturday we floated from ROLF to Patrick bridge and didn’t squeak a fish into the boat the entire day.  We floated the day with Brian and Jenny Wise and Jenny had a consistent nymph bite on a brown wigglestone down deep.  It was a great day to be on the water, the temps were in the high 50′s and we didn’t see an another person on the river the entire day.  It was the way a winter day on the NFOW is supposed to go.

On Sunday, Paul and I floated from ROLF to Blair bridge and took our nymph rods out of the boat so as not to tempt us into breaking the skunk off.  It was a short float, as Dan stayed back because he wasn’t feeling well and just met us at the take-out.  In the short 3hr float, we boated 3 fish with the biggest being a 17″ brown.  All the fish were caught on a rainbow schlappen inspired fly tied by Paul Chausse.  It was a good float and much needed after the day before.  But quite simply it was a weekend that we had to put in our dues.

Traveling with new fishing buddies is always a delicate dance, it is the fisherman’s equivalent to the first date.  How does he pack, what does he pack, can he fish, does he pitch in and help around camp, etc.  A fishing trip is a fishing trip, but we all know that there are only a few that we can travel with.  Dan, Paul, and I seemed to hit our stride and the traveling and the fishing went well.  I am certain it was the first of a few more trips.

All in all it was another good weekend on the water.

I have quite a few things planned in the coming weeks, so be sure to check out the site for updates.

–Matt Tucker

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By MattTucker, December 28, 2011 6:00 am

After the day Craig had on 12-17-2011 in his first float down the North Fork of the White River, things were looking up for our Sunday morning float on 12-18-2011.  We were up early, a little foggy from the beers the night before, but the biscuits were in the oven and the eggs were on the stove.  We were packed up and waiting on breakfast and Brian Wise, who was going to join us on our float as well on Sunday.

After the success we had on Saturday, we had arranged for a shuttle from ROLF to Blair Bridge again and after a quick bite and loading up the car, we headed down to the field and dropped the boat in.  Brian took the sticks first, as he wanted to see how my new boat handled….which meant that I got to fish for a bit.

Streamers were the order of the day, and I was throwing a 200grain sink tip along with an articulated Bully Streamer tied by Florida Guide, Brad Karczewski, at FlyDaddyShop.com.  The first fish of the day, was coincidentally my first fish out of my new boat, and it was approaching the 20″ mark, but just not quite there once we measured it.  Still a nice brown by anyone’s standards on the NFOW and it set the tone for our quick float.

We picked up the occasional fish the rest of the way throwing big flies, but no more big fish to speak of.  It was a good trip though as Brian, Craig, and I shared many laughs and stories as we floated the 3 miles or so to Blair Bridge.  All in all it was a great way to finish up the weekend.  We shot lots of photos and Brian shot some video (you can see some footage from this weekend in his 2011 Fall Fly Fishing Video), and the new boat is everything that I had hoped it would be.  Until next time.

–Matt Tucker

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