White & Norfork River Guide Service 12-29-09

Fly fishing Arkansas’ White and Norfork rivers with Fly Fish Arkansas top shelf guide Jimmy T. for a safe fun filled fish catching learning adventure.   My Mission: To provide a safe, educational, fun, fish catching adventure in any water or weather conditions.  As a veteran with 15 years full time guiding experience on these waters it’s this accumulated knowledge of the rivers that will make your day a memorable one.

Jay Hawk Jeff
Jay Hawk Jeff

Bull Shoals dam began generating this morning at 6:00 am with four units after being shut down at midnight. Today generation is scheduled to shut down at 11:00 am till 6:00 Pm when generation will begin again.  The lake surface temp is at 49 f.  Our temps since last week have dropped with the last cold front with highs during the day in the low to mid 30’s and lows at night in the mid to upper 20’s.  Today and tuesday should see some high temps in the 40’s with lows in the 20’s.  Starting tuesday night the chances of precip increase through thursday.  Dosn’t look as though it is going to warm up much more than this for the next week which should continue to drop the lake temps.

Norfork dam is now generating with one unit after shutting down a unit at 7:00 am. The lake level is 559.64

Flooding down stream is causing these dams to cut back on generation.  I’m sure that when the water levels down stream subside we will again see big water on Bull Shoals again.

Sign up for the SHAD KILL ALERT by sending an e-mail to shadkillalert@flyfisharkansas.com   By signing up for this e-mail alert you will be the first to know of this event.  If you have signed up in the past and did not get the alerts last year please re-send as my digital skills leave much to be desired and I know I’ve managed to loose a few or delete some.

Some info about the SHAD KILL:

Most years the White and Norfork rivers will get a shad kill. The key that seems to cause these kills appears to be the surface temps of the lakes.  A 42 degree surface temp seems to be the magic number.  This morning I dropped a thermometer at a boat ramp just down the road and came up with a temp of 52 which is a few degrees warmer than two weeks ago.  I also watched for gull activity below the dam as well.  A good sign that shad are coming through is when the gulls dive to the water and take shad from the surface.

When shad get pulled through turbines of the dams and into the rivers it causes some very exciting feeding activity.  The trout on these rivers go absolutely berserk and feed voraciously.  This can be seen if the shad come through with their swim bladders intact and full of air.  Explosive takes on the surface of the water will excite any fisher when this happens.  It is THE most fun of all the fishing on the White River.  It will get the adrenaline pumping for sure and dang near cause a heart attack when a fisherman has such a take on his/her floating fly from a big brown trout.

Shad

Special:  Book your trip before the end of the year for the month of February.  One full day fishing and two nights at River Cliff Cabin for two  $448.00 plus tax on lodging $8.82

Two full days fishing and three nights lodging:  $897.00 plus tax on lodging of $13.26 Lunch, guide, flies, leader, tippet, rods & reels included.

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Stay warm

Jim Traylor

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