Low water and a White River brown trout
HAVING a little perseverance is no bad thing when it comes to fly fishing. It will get you through tangles and bustoffs, windy days, the days when nothing goes right.
Last weekend the Journal spent 2 days on the water with Harvey and Glen from Little Rock. Harvey fished with me in summer, and Glen is a good clients of his and a mad-keen fisher. Both days we scored fish early, then things slowed during the middle part of the day. Actually Saturday morning Glen’s wife Lori was the one really whacking the fish _ despite never having held any type of fishing rod at all, let alone a fly rod, previously.
Now it wasn’t we weren’t catching fish, just not at the regular pace, and the Journal was kept busy changing flies and drifts to keep any action going. But riding out the slow times with a sense of humor and a dash of patience paid dividends. Late Saturday we hit upon a nice midge + bwo emergence above Wildcat that provided some nice action to close the day. Sunday though, with the drive home approaching the boy’s kept their smiles into the middle of the afternoon, when they lit upon a midge hatch for the ages. We were into double figure doubles, flies would barely sink when they were eaten. Bent rods and laughter on a succession of fat and sassy rainbows, one of the other seems to be pretty consistently hooked up for a couple of hours.
At the end of the day Glen had received a fly fishing education, the good the fair and the spectacular over two fun days. Its kind of the way winter fishing goes, some times you just have to work for them, but be on the water at the right time and it can be crazy good with no one around.
Glen and Harvey at Rim Shoals
WHITE RIVER: If you were looking at this morning’s generation 14,000 cfs would have been a nasty shock to the waders. But a closer inspection of the flows would have revealed a 6 hour window of wadeable low water. Higher generation is coming on these colder mornings as more of us kick on heaters. But lower middle of the day flows are more wade friendly.
Predicting the bursts of low water has been more troublesome, but they have been about, and we are still looking towards some bigger windows in the offing as Bull Shoals lake continues to fall.
Egg patterns are getting lots of water time now, and accounting for some nice fish. Try a scud or sowbug pattern trailing the egg. Hunchback scuds, 16s and 18s on the slower pools, in gray, olive or tan have been performing consistently. Davy’s Sowbugs, Trout Crack, Clint’s Sowbug, Woven V-Rib Sowbugs and Tailwater Sowbugs are proven performers.
Zebra Midges, HotHead Midges, Tungsten WD40s, and Ruby Midges have been performing strongly. Red, black and Copper and brown tones have all been good.
In soft hackles Anna Ks (black or green) and Tailwater Soft Hackles have been good.
NORFORK: Norfork water levels have been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow this week making it hard to catch some extended low water. But those who have timed it right have hit some solid fishing.
Black or Green Anna Ks have whacked a bunch of fish, as have Patridge and Yellow Soft Hackles and Tailwater Soft Hackles. Size 18 or 20 midges in darker tones have been very good under dark skies we have seen this week. Black and Silver or Black and copper Zebras, chocolate or black Tungsten WD40s.
If you are seeing BWOs try small Pheasant Tails, Micro Mayflies and Real Meal Nymphs. We have also had a number of customers seeking out small BWO dries through we haven’t had any confirmed reports of reliable surface activity as yet.
For the BWOs its work carrying
