Norfork River (Salesville, AR) — October 26, 2003

We woke to the sounds of the horn being blown around 4:00am for more water generation — so goes the life on the tailwater. It was decision time, do we stay and wait out the water and the crowds, or do we pack up early and head for some different water on the way home? Obviously we wanted to maximize fishing time, so we packed up camp much to the dismay of any of the neighbors of Campsite # 10. We were broke down and packed up within 30 minutes of getting on the road and saying goodbyes to David (he had decided to leave when we did and make a break for Dallas earlier than expected since they were running water). We got to the Spring River around 7am and hit no traffic on the way. We parked at the tourist center and suited up and headed for the river. I learned another important fact on this trip — during late october one must always pack for colder temps, even when the forecast calls for highs in the 70’s and lows in the 50’s. It was butt cold on Sunday morning, but we survived. I brought 5 fish to hand in little more than an hour near the Hwy. 63 bridge (all on mohair leeches) and Craig brought 1 fish to hand on a green serendipity midge. We were the only ones on the river that morning and it made for a nice little hour of fishing. We were worn out and cold and decided to head back to the car and get back to the families a little earlier than expected. Here is an important driving trip, be sure to watch for the 63 exit at Cabool when returning from the Spring River. If you miss your exit, feel free to drive the extra 10 minutes to reach a Citgo that has some MONSTER deer mounts of southern Missouri deer in it, just to get gas and head back to Cabool. We got back to St. Louis around 1:3opm and I was unpacked and in the shower by 2pm. This year was a great trip spent with a great group of guys on a great river, I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Spring River (Mammoth Spring, AR) — October 4 – 5, 2003

If you are a numbers person, then this trip would have been for you. In 2.5 days of fishing on the Spring River, the four of us (Craig Peterson, Brent McClane, Todd Buttzlaff, and I) caught approximately 300 trout and 2 smallmouth in total (this is a conservative number). Granted Todd and Brent headed down a day earlier and caught 90 fish between the two of them (so the 4 of us only caught 200 trout in 1.5 days). Craig and I didn’t leave St. Louis on Friday until a little after 4pm – but the record will show that I was ready to leave by 12pm. On the drive down we got a call from Brent to check our ETA, we were near the town of West Plains and about 70 miles out or so. I asked him how their day was, and the response went something like “we caught a little over 90 fish between the two of us today between two access points………this was the most fish I have caught in one day ever.” Well, that got both Craig and I pumped. We got down there unpacked and popped a beer with Brent and Todd and decided where to eat dinner. I will also say this, when someone fished / hunts with me there is never a shortage of food; but, when you fish with those guys there is never a shortage of beer. After a fine dinner at Fred’s Fish House in Mammoth Springs, we were back at the hotel room tying flies and having a good time. I climbed in bed about 12:15 or so that night and was up (too early) at about 5:30am on Saturday. We met up for breakfast and were on the water by 7:30am or so. The first thing we noticed was that the water was extremely low – probably close to 2 feet lower than when Mark and I fished it in April (which is unusual as this is strictly a single spring fed stream with one feeder creek) and the places that I liked to fish were not near as deep as they were on my previous trip. I won’t bore you with all the details but Saturday ended up with me getting my butt spanked on the water – Todd and Brent gave me a lesson in nymph fishing and caught close to 90 again, Craig ended up with about 30, and I finished up with 17 (15 on mohairs / wooly’s and 2 on scuds). We fished the area near the spring and the Hwy. 63 bridge. This was our first trip to this section of water, and man did I like the way it looked. It was definitely nice water. About 9:00am there was a nice Blue Wing Olive hatch. This was the first BWO hatch I have ever experienced (or at least that I know of — as Brent and Todd are both Biologists and are familiar with insects and were able to quickly identify them) and it was a pretty good hatch. I do have a photo of the hatch, but when it got shrunk down for the site it lost the details. I must say that it is good to see another set of fishing partners give each other as much crap as Craig and I do. Fishing with Craig and I has been referred to as fishing with an Old Married Couple — well I now know what that feels like after fishing with Todd and Brent. Saturday, we finished up on stream and had dinner at Fred’s Fish House again (I figure if I eat enough fish, maybe I will start to keep up with them), and back to the rooms for beer and flies. I didn’t tie on Saturday night nor drink but 3 beers, and was in bed considerably earlier than the night before. I ended up getting about 2 hours of sleep that night, I guess it was too much fish from Fred’s and not enough beer (I hear that is a delicate balance) and arose to the sound of rain. We hit the stream on Sunday morning by about 6:45 and you couldn’t ask for better weather to fish with temps in the mid 50’s and cloud cover and the occasional shower. I ended up with 16 fish on Sunday morning, Craig landed 22 (although he might need to subtract the two he caught on the San Juan Worm), not sure how many fish Brent and Todd ended up with (but between the two of them, I would say they caught at least 35 fish) that morning. My biggest fish of the weekend was a nice fat 16.5” brown, Craig caught several beautiful browns a little bigger. It was a great weekend. We made the trip in a little more than 3.5 hours one way, so it almost qualifies as a day trip destination from St. Louis, if the fish were bigger (average fish was 10” to 13”). Of the fish that I caught on Saturday, most were Browns and on Sunday, most were rainbows. We caught a ton of fish, and had a ton of laughs (many at my expense, driving across the bridge on the Spring River yelling down to Todd and Brent that “Matt Tucker was a f#c% face” was one of them). I had two hookups with fish on the new sculpin pattern (Rag Sculpin), but the water wasn’t really good streamer water. It was a great trip, and hope to have many more like it – although next time I hope I just can keep pace (although 33 fish over 1.5 days is not too bad in my book, it was put in perspective by everyone else’s days). I also learned two important things this weekend – always make sure that you have a scud on the end of your line when fishing an indicator set up (don’t go about 20 or 30 minutes without a fly on your line without noticing) and indicator fishing is a lot tougher than it seems. Maybe one day this season I will leave the mohairs at home, although I don’t know if I am that strong.

Spring River (Mammoth Spring, AR) — April 4 – 6, 2003

What a weekend! I have decided to start charging Mark for fishing lessons. There will be no more — hey Mark, why don’t you stand here and cast there………..; every time I would say that he would catch a fish on the first cast. Or, my favorite, this is how you strip a wooly…..teach a guy to strip a wooly bugger and he will make you his bit$# the rest of the weekend.

We left St. Louis around 1pm (after a stop by FeatherCraft and Schnucks for some last minute supplies), stopped at Denny’s for lunch in Rolla and started the trek down to Mammoth Spring, Arkansas down Hwy. 63. When we left Rolla the temperature was close to 70 degrees, by the time we got to Cabool it had started raining but the temperature hadn’t dropped that much. In West Plains, MO we hit the hail and POURING rain — it was pretty nasty there on Friday. We arrived at the RiverView Motel about 5:30 or 6:00pm, checked in, and decided to hit the water for some night fishing in the rain and lightening. We fished friday night for about an hour in the rain and dark, until we got scared out of the water due to the lightening. I was throwing a tan/ginger mohair leech and missed one fish. Mark scored on one fish, right at the boat access, on a scud under an indicator. Friday evening fish score — Mark 1; Matt 0.

Saturday morning, we were on the water by 5:00am with no one in sight. The Spring River is absolutely a beautiful river. We took allot of photos on this trip, and they don’t even begin to capture the beauty of this stream. We started off by fishing the Lasetter Access (named the Lasetter Access, I later learned, because “Old Man” Lasetter used to charge $.50 to park and fish the river from his farm, or $3/night to camp there) which was in view of our hotel (basically, if you looked out the balcony of our hotel you could see the access). It is the only stream access I have fished in this river in the past. I picked up a couple of fish on a brown mohair leech, and Mark picked up a couple fish on a brown or black wooly bugger. We were supposed to meet up with Dan Sears (Danoinark) and Tom Anderson (not a STL group member) at around 8:30am. We had been fishing for 3hrs already, so I decided to fish my way back to the access point to meet up with Dan and Tom when they arrived.

They arrived around 9am or so (they had stopped off for a breakfast of biscuits & gravy — so they can be forgiven) and after introductions and some brief visiting, Tom offered to show us 2 other access points for the river. He took us to the Bayou Access of the river (down a gravel/dirt road about 4 miles — which I would have never found) and to the hatchery access. The Spring River has ALOT of fishable water. After about an hour of sight-seeing, we decided to fish the Lassetter Access the rest of the morning. All you MiniVan naysayers beware, Tom was driving a mini-van and I am convinced that they make great fish cars due to all the room — and he drove it like a baja racer to the Bayou Access. This is when Mark started his fishing lessons for Dan and I — Mark quickly caught 4 fish on a black wooly. Dan eeked out a fish, after listening to the advice of Tom and fishing a chute of water a certain way. I still hadn’t caught a fish, since returning from our car ride. Even Tom got into the action catching 3 fish in about 30 minutes from the riffle below our hotel. Dan and Tom left after about an hour of fishing or so. It was really nice meeting both of them and I look forward to visiting/fishing with them on future trips to Arkansas (or whenever they decide to venture up to our neck of the woods). Mark and I decided to hit Sonic for lunch (he had never been to Sonic before) and then try our luck at the Bayou Access. Saturday Morning Fish Score — Dan 1; Tom 3; Matt 7; Mark 11.

After a quick lunch at Sonic we headed to the Bayou Access. This was the first access that actually had people fishing it — however, they were all suiting up and leaving the water. This section of river was nice as well. This was the first time that I had fished this section of water — I heeded Tom’s advice and parked myself in a riffle in front of the access and eeked out 6 fish over the next 3 hours. Mark did a little exploring upstream, where Tom indicated there may be some bigger rainbows and caught one fish. The scenery at this access was superb. There was some canoe traffic at this access, but nothing like seen on Missouri waters (in total i think 5 canoes/rafts drifted past me in my riffle – – and all but 1 floated behind me and apologized for disturbing the fishing). We both got a ton of sun that afternoon, and by 4:30pm I had decided to call it quits and go enjoy some ice cold water and a shaded chair. When I got back to my Blazer, it was covered in Caddis. This was the biggest hatch I have ever seen — they were very thick and flying/crawling over everything. I opted to sit back and watch the water a little, to see if there was any dry fly activity — no fish activity what-so-ever. I gave Mark my 3wt and he went up to some slower water, where he educated chubs in dry fly presentations of tiny griffith’s gnats. This was the most enjoyable part of the weekend, kicked back next to a beautiful river with no one in site and no other sounds. We stopped fishing about 6:00pm, and after about 11 hours of fishing in the sun and upper 60 degree weather. Saturday Afternoon/evening Fish Score – – Mark 1; Matt 6. Total Saturday Fish Score — Mark 12; Matt 13 (after 11 hours)

Sunday morning we woke up at 5am to the wind howling and the rain, and very very cold temperatures. The temperature when we arrived at the Lassetter Access (after checking out of the hotel, and packing up the Blazer) was a cool 31 degrees with rain and wind blowing to 25mph. There was a 40 degree temperature drop, rain, and wind conditions that all indicated neither of us should hook up on fish — it was a prescription for FAILURE. This was perhaps Mark’s day — he put on a black wooly bugger and proceeded to school me. It was pretty cool to watch; he worked the far bank and hooked up with fish at ease. I finally switched from a black mohair to a black wooly (i was convinced up until this day that a black mohair could keep pace with a black wooly any day) and started catching fish. I picked up one fish on a crackleback on top (saw the rising fish, casted to the rising fish, caught the rising fish), and broke off a BIG fish that all I could do was get him to boil under the water — but Mark saw the boil from about 50 yards away, and the fish hit the leech like a freight train. When it wasn’t pouring rain, it was gusting wind — it was really tough conditions to be fly fishing. I squeaked out 3 more fish on a black wooly — the biggest being about 15 or 16″ and by far the fattest one for myself this trip. I packed up my stuff and headed for the Blazer, while Mark fished his way down to the access point on the far side of the bank. He continued to hook up with fish. His last fish was his finest of the weekend, he hooked up with a 16″ rainbow that was really fat and put on quite a fight (i watched him land the fish while packing up my gear). Mark ended his fly fishing lessons with this rainbow. He was pretty excited and pumped after 3 hours of fishing in these conditions. Sunday Morning Fish Score — Matt 4; Mark 14. Total Weekend Fish Score — Matt 17; Mark 27.

The Spring River is a beautiful river, and I will be back this fall. It is a beautiful spring creek fishery that i hope will continue to be overlooked by everyone. The fish are not big (averaging 12″) at the accesses we were at. — Matt Tucker

Spring River, Arkansas — June 21 – 23, 2002

Craig, Doug, and I got back from our “White River” trip about 1:30 today (6/23). What started as a trip to fish the fabled tailwaters of Bull Shoals’ White River, ended as a 3 day trip to a forgotten trout river in northern Arkansas — the Spring River (near Mammoth Springs). We arrived in Mammoth Springs Friday evening around 5:00pm and were fishing by 5:30pm. We fished till about 8:30pm and had an alright evening. I caught 4, Craig caught 1 or 2, and Doug caught 1 (a very colorful brown) (it was his first time fly fishing). It wasn’t the number of fish that was impressive (obviously not because we didn’t catch that many), nor was it the size (average size was about 12 inches), but it was the scenery and the river itself that made for a great evening. It is an absolutely beautiful river. We fished the Lasseter Access of the river and not once were we crowded. The river is a natural spring fed river with constant 58degree water. There wasn’t a part of the river that didn’t look like it would not have fish. It was ALOT different than fishing any of Missouri’s streams. So about 8:30 we got on the road to head towards Cotter, Arkansas, and His Place Resort. We arrived at His Place Resort around 10:30pm or so and unloaded the truck, had some beer with the neighbors and checked on the # of Generators running — it was 8. We woke up about 5:30 and checked the status of the generators, it was still 8, so we decided to do some smallmouth fishing on Crooked Creek, near Yellville. We arrived at Crooked Creek around 7:00am and quickly got directions to the Kelly’s Slab access. The water looked great. We started fishing our way downstream from the access, and within 30 minutes Craig hooked in to a good smallie — but that is all he did was hook into it. On the first run, the fish took off and snapped his line. From the bend in his rod, and the way it took line — it was a decent fish. We fished for the next 4 hours without a bite. Tired, hungry, and wet, we decided to head back to Cotter and check the generation status — still 8 generators. It was decision time — should we stay or should we go. We decided to cancel our second night at His Place Resort, and get a room in Hardy, Arkansas and fish the Spring River Saturday evening and sunday morning. Craig had a decent evening on Saturday — landing 4 or 5.

I only brought to hand 1 or 2, but LDR’d several and missed more than my fair share of fish. We fished till bout 6:30pm. We were tired and hungry, and in desperate need of showers, so we headed back to the hotel room. We were on the river by 5:30am this morning, and had the river completely to ourselves for about an hour, then the bait fisherman showed up. But once again, we were never crowded (and didn’t fish within 75 yards of another person the whole weekend). I took 5 fish today and Craig took 5 as well. We quit fishing around 9am and got on the road for the long trip back. We caught fish on a little of everything: cracklebacks, beadhead cracklebacks, copper johns, pheasant tail nymphs, mohair leeches, wooly’s, and (Mike_S you should close your ears) I did take one fish on a San “the don” Juan worm. It wasn’t a successful weekend in terms of number of fish caught, but we did get to fish a new river. The river itself was absolutely beautiful, and I did talk to a gentleman that was stringing up his fly rod, as we were leaving, that had caught a 6lb Brown and his friend had taken a 9lb rainbow out of the river. So the river does have big fish potential. The trip was definitely a success. — Matt Tucker