Fly Fish Arkansas | Some Wadeable Water

Looks like some wadeable water is in this morning with the flows dropping down to just over a unit of water with 36 MW or almost a unit or 2700 CFS as of 4:00 am. Previously there was almost 7,000 CFS which means that this wadeable water will be at the dam. The grassy spot on the Marion county side of the dam would be a good choice with a chernobyl and or hopper and a tungsten bead midge as a dropper.

Generation Schedule for Sat~Sun & Monday:

Calls for less than a unit until 1:00 pm today Saturday then amping up as the heat of the afternoon progresses. On Sunday the schedule looks the same with generation increasing at 1:00 pm except that wadeable water should be more accessible in areas downstream including the state park at Due Eddy shoals as well as at partee shoals at gastons, the downstream inside bend below the White Hole access, Three Chutes, the mail box at stetsons, the bottom of blue hole and the narrows island in various spots as well as under the old bridge at Cotter. Round House and Armstrong hole along with Foust spring will be wadeable as well. Rim Shoals will be wadeable later in the afternoon as the tail water drops out and water levels drop. Mondays’ schedule looks similar but it is always advisable to expect the unexpected on Mondays as it’s go back to work day and business amps up and uses more energy.

You never know what you’ll see on the White River:

While fishing with Brad W from Kansas City and his buddy Dave C from Austin Tx we came across this scene and watched these critters for a few minutes before they ran off.

We were running back upstream to find clean water and Dave caught sight of these fox playing. Mom took off after only a few seconds but these two stayed around for a couple of minutes which was enough time for brad to take out his camera and snap this photo.

Fishing Report:

As you know the past few days the water has cooperated and provided a pattern of about 2 1/2 units with a rise to ride using a hopper and a dropper. I thought I would be able to do the same yesterday but the water came up much to fast to do it as successfully as the previous two days and when it did come up it was a bit nasty. We headed to the dam mid morning and got into fish right away. It was pretty non-stop fishing 7 units up to 8 units with few fluctuations during the day. Dave did hook and land the biggest fish of the day and Brad snapped this photo.

This fish fought all the way to the boat and continued to fight Dave for the photo op as you can see. We figured this fish needed to be back in the water so we released it unharmed back into the river. Good job Dave. Numbers of fish at the dam were good with lots of fat healthy bows. Brad did hook into something that gave him three good head shakes but his line shot back at him with out one of his missing. MMMMmmmm…. Big fish perhaps?

Lake Level:

The lake level at Bull Shoals this morning is at 656.44 with a little rain predicted for this afternoon through Monday due to the tropical depression predicted to head our direction. This coming weeks temps are expected to drop some by monday down into the lowers 90’s and below 90 on tuesday with night time lows in the lower 70’s and then climbing back up into the mid 90’s on thursday.