Visiting An Old Friend; A Spring River Trip Report

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After getting our fill of dink rainbows on the White River the past three days trying to float dead low water on the tailwaters, we were in search of some “strange.”  Enter the Spring River.  It had been since March, since I had been on the Spring River.  But after the trip that Will King and I took with Mark Crawford, I was looking for any chance to get back to the Spring River.  A few nights before, we were trading stories about our favorite rivers and the Spring River came up.  It is more of a catch and keep river, and currently is managed as such, but it would offer the best opportunity to get out of the tailwater grind and chase some of the big rainbows that congregate on the river in the fall.

The river didn’t disappoint.  We each caught a handful of fish in our limited time fishing the standard egg fair, and even picked up a fish or two on a small streamer.  The highlight of this stop was watching Craig hook up with a pig of a rainbow.  When we first spotted the fish flashing on the bottom, I thought it was a carp.  I was not convinced it was a trout, until Craig was hooked up with it.  It was over in 5 seconds, but he tangled with his first double digit rainbow on the Spring River.  It was the biggest rainbow I had seen on the river to date, and stoked the fire for each of us to get back. We rolled off the river after about 3 hours and headed back to St. Louis after 4 days on the trout waters of Arkansas.  Lots of fun and lots more to come.

–Matt Tucker

Dead Low Water II; A White River Trip Report

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After a long night hanging out with the locals at the house we rented, we were up fairly early the next morning wrestling with the same decision….water flows suck, where are we going to float on Saturday (2012-10-27).  The White River was on its 4th day in a row of zero generation, and was representing a traveling wade fisherman’s wet dream.  However, I have traded those low water wet dreams in for hopes of 4,000CFS or larger flows, but I digress.  As we kicked back in the morning, it was apparent everyone had different ideas about where to fish.

Dan, Paul, and Jim had decided to tow their Hyde drift boat up to Lake Taneycomo to fish some higher flows, while Corey Dodson decided to stick close to the house and wade fished the Narrows area and Wildcat Shoals on the White, Ray Reidy and Jeff House decided to try their luck on the Norfork with the promise of the possibility of some midday increased flows (their gamble paid off and they were rewarded with full generation for a few hours), and Craig Peterson, Dan Ritter, and I decided to head in to Dally’s Ozark Fly Fisher shop for a shuttle from Cotter access to Rim Shoals (on dead low water).  If anything, we had all the White River tailwaters covered.

The fishing from Cotter to Rim Shoals was pretty solid.  We continued rolling dinks in the boat with ease on various nymph, eggs, worms, and midges throughout the river.  We put in and rowed up to the railroad bridge above the Cotter ramp and spent entirely too much time fishing around the bridge and dock near the campground.  Fish were caught, but we should have pushed on quicker.  We ended up banging the bank with streamers from Cotter down to the top of Round House and picked up several fish (dinks) on a Cinnamon Colored Bottom’s Up near the Spring Branch.  And this fly continued to be the ticket for the rest of the day.

The most interesting part of the day was floating through Round House Shoals.  The river at dead low is still a learning experience, and this was the first time I rowed this section of river.  Round House Shoals is just super sexy water and the low water brought out all the wader fisherman.  It is amazing to me that they all flock to the river-right side of the island instead of fishing the fast pocket water on river-left (which coincidentally is also the boat channel we had to row / walk the boat through).  The Hyde G4 bottom took a beating again today as we pinballed our way down some of the skinnier slots and when we hopped out to walk it through some of the super skinny stuff.

We ended up pulling off the river around 5pm or so and headed back to the rental house.  Surprisingly, the guys that ran to Taneycomo had just beat us back to the house and had the BBQ pit going for a night filled with more beer, brats, and good bullshit.  Corey got back from his wade fishing trip, and Ray and Jeff headed back after floating the Norfork and the conversations all confirmed that the fishing was still the same…..no big fish and lots of dinks.

With little promise for a change on Sunday morning, the conversation after dinner turned to where to fish on Sunday morning.  It didn’t take long for consensus to be met, and on Sunday morning we would head out early for redemption on the Spring River.

More to follow.

–Matt Tucker

 

 

Norfork River Renunion; A Norfork River Trip Report

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Every October, about as frequently as the Cardinals make the playoffs, a group of friends and I head for the tailwaters in Arkansas to chase trout in what marks the beginning of fall, and our fishing season.  It is one of the few trips that even gets planned out, and this year was no different.  Well, it was a little different.  It seems that the lonely Texan in the group would not be able to make the trip north due to “the man” and after hemming and hawing over could he go, could he not go, and useless percentages of his ability to go…….it was go time….and he did not (but was subsequently missed, never the less).  I sensed that he was a bit overtaken by how easily he was replaced……that is the one thing about owning a drift boat, there is never any shortage of people to fish with.  But I digress.

I reached out an old high school friend that had gotten back in to fly fishing over the years and within an afternoon, the boat was full and the wheels were set in motion.  Craig Peterson, Dan Ritter, and I rolled out of St. Louis around 4:30pm or so and headed south, boat in tow and loaded down with all the essentials (mainly alot of beer).  We were meeting up with two streamer addicts from Illinois (Paul Chausse and Dan Held) at a house that they had found online for rent near the Wildcat Shoals Boat Ramp on the White River.  They got an earlier start on the day than we had planned, so we ended up meeting them at the house when we rolled in around 11pm on Wednesday night.  After some catching up /rod rigging and a beer or two, it was lights out.

The alarm went off Thursday morning and we were packed up into the rigs and headed for the White Sands Restaurant in downtown Cotter.  The White Sands Restaurant is sort of an institution for the traveling fly fisherman.  If you haven’t eaten breakfast  there……well, you should.  The six of us (Craig Peterson, Dan Ritter, Paul Chausse, Dan Held, Jim Held, and myself) had a breakfast bill of no more than $40.00 and we ate like kings (which is a recurring theme for this trip).  Next stop was the Norfork River after a quick pitstop to say hello to Steve Dally over at Dally’s Ozark Fly Fisher fly shop.  My license was set to expire on Friday, so i needed to renew, and the boys picked up a few odds and ends.

We rolled down to Quarry Park Campground and Access around 9am and dropped  the boats in (even dropped mine in without the plugs in it for good measure……) and ran down to Two Rivers Fly Shop in Norfork near the confluence of the White River and Norfork River to inquire about a shuttle back to the ramp and for a few bucks we were on our way back to the put-in.  The Norfork was pushing about 1500 CFS as we started our float, and the heat built up.  The weather, not the fishing, was the story of the day.  Craig and I chose to fish in shorts, sandals, and t-shirts, while Dan offered to wader up just in case someone needed to get out and push (he did once).  The temp soared to the mid 80’s for the high, but around 2pm or so a massive front moved in (we were fighting an upstream wind all day long) and the temp dropped by 30 degrees by the time we made it back to Mountain Home.

While we didn’t set the world on fire fishing, the boys stuck to their guns and threw streamers most of the day and were rewarded with a handful of small rainbows (although a few did fall victim to a bobber rig).  A yellow sex dungeon seemed to be the streamer of choice in my boat, with considerably more follows than takes.  But so it goes.  Dan Held did get an eat from a “toad” of a fish just below dock hole, but it was over in seconds and we could hear some choice words and rod waiving all the way upstream.  We rolled off the water around 4:30pm and headed back to the house in the pouring rain to change and drop the boats off and then dinner.

The Arena Sports Bar in Mountain Home seems to have become my choice for dinner (at least it was the last two trips south).  The food is always good, and there are plenty of TV’s to catch up on anything sports related.  We hung out there for a few hours enjoying dinner and conversation and were joined by Dominic Zametto (owner of Two Rivers Fly Shop in Norfork) and a couple of his buddies / clients for the day.  Good food, good drinks, good conversation, but we were wiped tired from the long night and day and hit it early on Thursday.

More to follow.

–Tucker