North Fork of the White River featured on Outdoor Channel

Ozark Fly-Fishing Guide Brian Wise is no stranger to the OzarkChronicles.  Brian is a good friend of mine, and a really good fisherman; if the guy would only catch a fish on a turk’s tarantula I might actually think he can walk on water.  So it is with great pleasure (and maybe a hint of jealousy) that I am posting that he is once again a television star.  Earlier this spring, an episode of Outdoor Channel Outfitters was filmed at River of Life Farm on the banks of the North Fork of the White River, and Brian was one of the guides featured in the episode to help with a Project Healing Waters event that was being hosted at ROLF.  After speaking with Brian about the show and the event, I can tell you he had a blast doing it.

The episode also features an Ozark Fly Fishers member, Mike Ott, doing extremely well on the water in Brian’s boat prior to the event.  This is at least the second time that Brian has shown-up on the Outdoor Channel and I seriously think this guy should invest in an acting coach or something (perhaps Mr. Paul Dallas can give him some advice about being on camera).  You can view both shows by CLICKING HERE.

NFOW Trip Report (Kelly to James)

With an invitation like I received earlier this week from Brian Wise, I was really looking forward to heading down to the North Fork of the White River for a float. The weather was supposed to be really nice (although, we could have done away with the bluebird skies), and any day on the river is a good day. So I took off after work on Friday, and rolled into the metropolis of Gainesville, Missouri about 10pm.

Up early and a 6am breakfast at Skeeter’s (where the waitress revealed that there was no “gravy” to be served this morning; gravy is like coffee for me….so my morning didn’t start off as I had hoped….but it wasn’t bad), and we were rolling into the Kelly Ford access on the North Fork of the White River. We were met by two guys who had their truck parked and were camping on the “boat ramp”, prior to launching their canoe for a day of fishing. In truth these guys probably didn’t know any better, and we were able to slide the boat down over the tree roots, but backing the trailer up with the longer wheel base durango was a little bit more difficult. They were trying to be helpful, offering up fly suggestions as we were rigging our rods and what not; and with that I popped my first Stag beer of the morning (Stag is a highly under-rated beer).

Brian and I decided to switch off rowing after every fish. I was up front first, and within the first 10 minutes or so I had a fish on. It was a dink, but it was a wild rainbow and it fell pray to rubber leg and prince nymph dropper under an indicator about 7ft deep. And like that, I was on the sticks and Brian was up. He popped 2 or 3 fish rather quickly and we swapped out again just as McKee bridge was coming into site.

The day pretty much consisted of the same rubber leg / prince dropper combo with lots of weight and deep with plenty of fish brought to hand (including a sucker….caught by your’s truly).  With switching on and off the oars.  I think I might have even impressed Brian as I rowed him through the “Rock Garden” with so much as a tap of a rock — at the bottom he offered a triumphant fist bump of his approval.

The only excitement came when I started to throw a sink tip and a Galloups Articulated Fat Head Minnow and got a big dark shadow to appear on my fly and then disappear.  I did manage one other strike, but with the bright skies, we weren’t expecting much of a streamer bite.  I guess, the other excitement came as Brian hopped out of the boat in an effort to net a sucker I had caught and took a bath.  I am not sure if it was the actual act of hoping out of the boat, or the Stag Beer we were drinking, or the fact that I hooked a sucker which caused the excitement but either way we had a good laugh.

As the day warmed up, there was a pretty large caddis hatch that was coming off (with big caddis…close to a #12 or so) and I actually got to see ALOT of fish rising in the North Fork of the White River, which was cool; but we didn’t have a single dry fly among us (less some Turk’s Tarantula’s….which are always good to have).

There were alot of people on the river, as we were floating down along the road to Kelly Ford there was a raft with a fishing frame driving in. So in total, we weren’t on the water more than 20 minutes and had already seen 2 more boats. The weather was nice, and that trend continued as we saw several canoes and at least 5 separate pontoon boats, and Tito and a buddy brought their Hyde over from the Eleven Point for a float as well.

Tito received a Hyde Contender series drift boat for Christmas.  He and his buddy put in just below the Parker Bridge access and floated to the James Bridge takeout.  His boat is a high side drift boat like mine, but his is a walk-around model (where mine has bench seats).  I have to tell you, I was impressed with his boat.  The only issue is getting under the bridges at McKee and Patrick with a high side drift boat….not going to happen at 650CFS for the Patrick bridge.

We floated from Kelly Ford to James Bridge, which essentially covers all of the trout water on the North Fork of the White River.  As stated earlier, the water flow was about 650 cfs, and that was the max for getting Brian’s lowpro clacka underneath the Patrick Bridge.  He actually had to walk the boat under the bridge and hang off the bow of it to get it to fit under the bridge.  My Hyde would not have made it under the bridge, without filling it with water to make it float lower, and then bailing the water once on the other side.

This was also my first time fishing the water below Patrick, and I was impressed with it for sure.  This section of the water is mainly a stocked brown trout fishery, and this is what we caught mostly in this section.  I would definitely fish this section of river again, as the river gets wide in this section, but there is a variety of water to fish between Patrick and James Bridge.

I can’t say enough good things about the North Fork of the White River.  This river is awesome and fishes extremely well from a drift boat.  Every fish we caught today came while floating, if we would strike on a fish we would row upstream (in spots where that was practical) and float it again and pick up another fish.  Numbers wise, we boated between 20 and 30 fish which made for a great day in the boat.

We finished up our float about 5pm and headed back to Gainesville to drop off the boat and then to West Plains for dinner at El Charro before I drove back to St. Louis for my daughter’s 8th birthday on Sunday. Rolled in to my driveway at 10:45pm dead tired, all in all a great way to start a weekend.

2009 Missouri Trout Odyssey — Day 4 (3 Streams)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNYo0xMbpaw[/youtube]

We were staring down the tail-end of the trip as we woke up in our hotel room in Ava, Missouri.  We had three streams we needed to knock off today, so that would mean a lot of driving as we fished our way east across the bottom of the state.  The first stop on this leg of the trip was Brian’s home waters, the North Fork of the White River near Dora, Missouri and the Blair Bridge Access.

The North Fork of the White River is a fly-fisherman’s nirvana.  This stream is what every trout stream in the state wishes it could be (well maybe not the Eleven Point..).  I rigged up the rod, and there was something about this morning that I just knew I was going to have my ass handed to me on this river…again.  Brian Wise couldn’t save me as I had my first take only to not get a solid connection and like that it was off.  The more I threw the 12ft long indicator, #4 rubber leg stone, #14 psycho prince dropper rig the more I became frustrated with this river.  The more I became frustrated, the more I loved it.  It is a vicious cycle.  But all good things come to an end, and we needed to get moving, so after the berating I was taking from Brian on the stream I quickly handed him the rod and he hooked up with a dink brown just as we were walking out (but he too….had to work for it….eggs really do catch fish anywhere).

As we rolled out of the access, I marveled at the ridiculous concrete work that the access had just received.  This must be the biggest MDC waste of money, since stocking trout in Hickory Creek.  Of all the things to spend money on, turning a perfectly good gravel parking lot into a concrete parking lot is not one of them.  Hell, I would rather see another boat ramp or the money go to raising the bridges at McKee Bridge and Patrick Bridge.  At any rate, I digress.

We had thought about adding the tailwaters of Arkansas on the trip, but I had really wanted to get back to the Spring River, as I hadn’t been on it since October.  So we set our sites across Hwy 160 towards Hwy 63 and headed south to the town of Mammoth Spring, Arkansas.  I didn’t have the Bayou Access marked on the GPS, but we found it just fine.  Bayou Access is one of the nicer sections of the Spring River with plenty of different habitat to fish.  The water was up, and the wading was very limited, so Brian grabbed his rod and headed upstream to give it a shot.  He worked a section of stream right in front of the access and was rewarded with a rainbow on a psycho prince.  It had started to rain a bit (the first time on the trip), so it was time to put the camera gear up and with that, we found a drive-through for lunch and headed towards the Eleven Point River having just fished 20 streams in 4 days.

What can I say about the Eleven Point River, it is a beautiful untouched jewel of an Ozark trout stream.  The Eleven Point has always fished well in my previous trips to it (I wonder why I don’t fish it more), and this trip would be no exception.  The thing about the river is that it is a river that needs to be floated (moreso than any other river in the state).  Unless you are willing to hike the Ozark Trail, the wading opportunities on this stream really are not that present.  We pulled in to Greer Spring Access, we met up with one of Brian Sloss’s newest employee’s, Tito.  He was a really good guy, gave up a handful of his personal flies and pointed us in the right direction and after some general chit-chat we were off.  The Eleven Point held true to form and I was rewarded with two fish pretty quickly while fishing a 12ft indicator rig with a rubber leg stonefly and an egg dropper (both fish took the rubber leg).  Just as we were heading back to the car, Brian Sloss (Eleven Point Canoe Rental) rolled in and we stood around as we de-wadered and recounted the trip we had just completed.  It was good to catch up with Brian and had we stood there much longer, I am sure the beers would have been opened and a campfire would have been found; but we were haunted by th skunk on the Current River and needed to head north back to the Current River and towards Rolla (our original starting point).

On the drive north on Hwy. 63 we stopped just south of Licking, Missouri and had to have one of the finest dinners I have ever had on a fishing trip at Black Forest Grill.  The ham steak that I had, was simply amazing.  If you are looking for a great place to grab some eats when around Licking, I would definitely check them out.  After dinner, we headed towards the Scenic Rivers Inn to sort through video and photos and gear before hitting the Current River in the morning.

NFOW….I Finally Made It My Bitch

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.

Missouri Trout Odyssey (Day 4) — 2 More Missouri Trout Streams

The alarm went off at 4am, like the whistle at a trout park (loud and non-exciting). I jumped up and grabbed a quick shower and woke up Brian. We packed up the gear and were out the door in search of coffee and donuts as quickly as possible. It was during his time, that we finally found the Dunkin’ Donuts guy that sings when he is serving your donuts. He wasn’t much of a singer, he didn’t make a latte worth a damn, but he was a nice enough guy and it was breakfast. Besides, Brian not only has a way with the older female drive-thru workers; it appears he has a way with the slightly mind challenged Dunkin’ Donut workers too.

The drive from Branson to the Blair Bridge Access on the North Fork of the White River is a curvy son of a bitch during the daylight hours when you are a city driver. Combine that with icy conditions and nighttime conditions (the sun wasn’t up yet) and it makes from one long drive. We rolled in to the access around 6:30am and suited up in the cold and were soon fishing the run just below the boat ramp. One would assume that since this was Brian’s home turf the river would just bend over and let me have my way with it……..but like on my numerous other trips to the NFOW, the river made me its bitch with only 1 hook-up and plenty of missed strikes yet adding insult to injury Brian fished the water that i had been camped on an hooked a brown IMMEDIATELY. Fuck him.

The river is absolutely gorgeous, and there is definitely fish there, it is just that on certain times the river and I don’t see eye to eye; and the river tends to have its way with me like a whore on the east side. Brian picked up a fish, but saw the ass-whoppin’ that I was taking and offered to help…….proving it was karma I still didn’t pick up a fish. We laughed about it, enjoyed the scenery, and then reeled in and headed towards our last stop of the trip the Eleven Point River.

Neither Brian or I have spent much time on the Eleven Point River in the past, but we really need to not ignore the beauty of a trout stream. We rolled in to Greer Access on the Eleven Point River and re-rigged our rods, just in time to have Brian Sloss, the co-owner of Eleven Point Canoe Rental, to roll into the parking lot to say hello and offer up a few suggestions. We chatted for a bit, but needed to be in West Plains by 12pm (so technically we did all the fishing / driving in 3 1/2 days but we didn’t want to say anything), so we needed to get going on the fishing. We headed upstream and fished the area around the Hwy. 19 bridge. Brian and I both picked up a couple of fish rather quickly and were getting strikes and landing fish rather frequently just downstream of the bridge on an egg pattern under alot of indicator (8ft to 10ft deep). But all good things must come to an end, and we needed to meet Brian’s wife in West Plains so we reluctantly reeled up and headed back to the rig.

As we got back to the rig, we reflected on what we had just done. 20 trout streams in 4 days. Maybe it is impressive to some, and to others not. It didn’t matter to us. We had a hella good time, and with that we cracked the first beer of the trip and endulged ourselfs. After the beer, we peeled off the waders for the last time this trip, joked about running down to the Spring River in Arkansas, and headed back to towards West Plains our souls replinished with the trout streams of Missouri; 20 of them in total.