Fishing for Big Fish on Low Water:  White River Arkansas

The holy grail of fly fishing on any water is being able to stalk, hunt, hook and land a big fish.  It’s the dream of many a fisher and guides alike.  On the White River fishing for big brown trout is not an easy task and for most is just the pure luck of being in the right place at the right time.  As a guide and a thinking fisherman I don’t like those odds at all.  It’s not a productive way to do my job of putting some one in the position of hooking and landing a big fish.  Nope!  I like to know they are there or see them.  It’s this information or knowledge that increases the odds of hooking and landing one of these big boys.

There is no big secret to the success of catching these fish other than knowing the river extremely well and where the fish hang out.  Simply put you have to know the river, it’s bottom, the currents, the nooks, the crannies and the channels.  You have to know where the other boats are going to go and set your self up accordingly.  It also helps to know the guides on the river as well and be familiar with their style of fishing be it a bait or fly fishing guide. Stalking the big fish on the White in no generation water is a lot like playing chess in that the river is navigable and boats move up and down the river and knowing where the boats are going to go and where the fish will move when the boat goes by is pure gold.

In faster water I like to fish for big fish in an area where the fish have no where to go such as a ledge rock area like wildcat shoals, buffalo shoals or in a place like the narrows.  What I mean by ledge rock is drops or shelfs that will hold fish in a spot where they can’t move.  My very best spot is a hole with a ledge that holds the fish both upstream and downstream with no where to go on the left and a boat channel on the right.  In fact I love it when a boat goes by as it will often cause a fish to hit the fly.  There are not a ton of spots like this but they do exist.  Most fisherman pass them up as they don’t look like they will hold big fish.  I like to fish these spots either upstream or at a right angle to the fish.  In this situation it is not necessary that the fisherman see the fish if I can see them and guide his/her cast to the fish.  I rig up with a long leader  up to 20 feet and 5X or 6X tippet with a  number 6 shot 12 to 18 inches above the fly and a whole palsa or dry fly as an indicator another 10 to 12 feet above the shot so as not to spook the fish with the fly line.  The flies I use are Leonards kangaroo scud, trout crack, san juan worm brown, loop wing emerger, planarium and a stimulater in orange if using a dry as an indicator.

In slow water or the pools I generally fish from the boat so we can have some height to see the fish.  I work slow water pools by hitting the pods (schools) of fish until they spook or we catch one. Then I move to the next pod and do the same.   I approach a pod and make sure I and my fisherman can see the fish.  Then either by fishing upstream or fishing to them at a right angle I let a fisherman drift a fly to the edge of the school and with each successive cast, drift the fly in closer. We will either hook one or spook them and then move to the next pod and repeat.  In gastons hole for instance there are about 5 pods of fish to hit.  Same in bruce creek hole.  It’s an odds game in that if I hit enough pods there is sure to be at least one fish that will take a fly.  The fly I generally use is a red midge with a black nickel tungsten bead.  My leader and tippet is also long and may reach 20 feet with a very small white palsa usually cut in half so as not to spook the fish with the fly line or an indicator. © 2010

The Shad Kill

Shad Kill

This article written Dec 7 2009.

Another writer has called the Shad Kill a “pseudo hatch”.  He is right in the sense that it’s not like a caddis or mayfly hatch.  It’s really not a hatch at all but pseudo hatch does sort of describe this event in that it happens almost every year and some times twice in a single year.  Yep!  A lot of folks don’t know that sometimes a shad kill occurs at the end of the summer near or after the labor day holiday weekend.  This~ summer~ shad kill is more rare than the early spring kill which happens just about every year.  Forty two (42 f) degrees fahrenheit seems to be the magic temperature at the surface of the lake which causes the early spring shad kill on Bull Shoals and Norfork lakes.  The summer kill is caused by much warmer temps and I’ve not figured out the magic temps for the summer event but also seems to be helped along with low D.O. (dissolved oxygen) and lake turn over.

Shad get pulled through turbines of the dams and into the rivers which 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.  At times there are so many shad coming through that the  surface glitters.  Twice in 15 years so many shad have come through the dam and made it to Buffalo Shoals which is 32 miles down stream from the dam.  That is a lot of shad.

Shad

Sometimes though the shad will come through with their air bladders burst and they will sink to the bottom instead of floating to the surface.  This requires fishing the bottom and fishing with some weight on.  The cast used for lots of weight is commonly the the water haul introduced and made popular by John Wilson.  It is a simple cast that generally takes the duck out of the chuck and duck type cast if done properly.  Generally though shad will be suspended in the water column and so must the fly, wether with one that sinks very slowly or one that is suspended by an indicator.  Another guide and I worked on flies a number of years back and tungsten beads have made a fly possible with a slow sink rate and is best fished on floating line. It is a technique that allows the fisher to see the fly and watch the take.  It was first done as far as I know when the “gummy minnows” first came out but there were problems with the fly, we also used lead head jigs which worked pretty well but most fly fishers didn’t consider them flies so back to the tying bench for some more experimentation.  Six  years ago this winter a fellow guide and I played around with some tungsten bead maribou flies that worked in this fashion (slow sinking).   I was powder painting t-beads then to get the colors needed which limited me to the number of flies I could tie as painting these beads in this manner was a royal pain.  Today it is not a problem as painted tungsten beads are a little more common ( see flys hop page ) and make it much easier to produce large numbers of flies.  Tungsten beads have not only changed the way guides now fish the river but are also starting to change the way a shad kill is fished as well.

Much credit needs to go to Tom Rogers who developed a couple of flies years ago that are still used today.  The inverted popper (sneaky pete, slider) and especially the Blow Fly.  Tom tied it with a red bead on the head and with out a red bead.  It was designed to move weave and bob around in the heavy currents of 8 units of generation.  Both flies are  still used by many guides with lots of modifications and different versions.  Another fly I’ve been involved with is a foam one in the shape of a floating shad that rides on it’s side like the shad mostly do.  I’ve been using this shad pattern for a number of years with some success and in different versions and colors.  John Wilson showed me how to cover it with Flexi Cord body material from W.A.P.S.I. which changed everything for me with this fly.  I believe also that John Gully was also using a similar fly that he had come up with.  I was shown the fly by Frank Saksa 10 years ago and we used them then naked or with out the body covering.  They worked ok but not like they do with the body covering.  It’s a time consuming fly to make and it’s hard to cast but works well under the best conditions and early in the kill.  Davy Wotton has a unique version of a floating shad pattern as well.  His pattern was developed originally in the U.K. for fishing still water but he adapted it for use on the White River system and it floats belly down.  It is a successful pattern I first saw him use 8 years ago.  It too is not an easy fly to churn out in big numbers.

One of the draw backs to fishing a shad kill can be the sheer numbers of shad coming through the dam.  As I said I’ve seen them make it 32 miles down stream in large numbers.  With kills this big you can be sure the trout will gorge and then they get real hard to catch.  This is rare however but often fishing further from the dam is more productive than fishing at the dam.  I like to fish what I call the “cusp”.  This is where the shad have not quite made it yet in big numbers but the fish are turned on by shad flies because they’ve seen a few of them and are keyed in on them.  Big fish will move for a long way to take these flies.

My outlook for a shad kill this year is good as colder temps are here now along with lots of wind to churn the lake up and cool it off.  In november before we got our first freeze the lake temps were at 54 and are now at 49 so it looks good at the moment.

Don’t forget to sign up for my shad kill alert by sending an e-mail to shadkillalert@flyfisharkansas.com with shad kill in the subject line.  Those who sign up for the alert are the first to know of this event.  Don’t forget to pick up the phone and book your trip for feb, march and early april which are the prime months to fish the shad kill.  My number is 870-404-8906.  Try to avoid friday and saturdays if you can and sundays through thursdays are the least crowded days as large numbers of boats can slow or even shut the fish down.

2010  E-mail for permission to use any or all parts of this article.

Riding “The” Rise  Article written Jan 18 2010

Riding the rise is one heck of a fun way to fish the White River in Arkansas below Bull Shoals Dam.  I don’t know if you’d call it a technique or even a style, but it can be some fast and furious fishing.  It’s hard core fishing for sure.  Riding the rise happens when generation goes from zero generation to heavy generation.  This rising water creats a feeding freenzy and the trout will eat just about anything.

Personally I like riding the rise when 4 to 6 units of water are started up. Weak rises just don’t cut the mustard. I get on the leading edge of the water or about 18 iunches of the rise in the clearest section of the water and ride it for as long as I can.  We don’t take much time for lunch when we ride the rise or it can pass you by.  As the water comes up it churns up the bottom and dislodges the aquatic trout food such as sculpin, crawfish, sow bugs, scud, worms, midges and other trout snacks.

When fishing this rise just about anything tied at the end your tippet will work.  Most of the time I’ll use a two fly set up with an indicator or even a dry fly as the indicator.  A big humpy is a good fly to use as the dry.  Most of the time the two flies I rig fisherman up with are san juan worms in the tan color and a sow bug or a scud shotted above the flies about 18 inches.  A number 4 shot works well on a long leader of 9 to 12 feet below the indicator.

When fishing the rise i’m always fishing new water as it is not really feasable to run up and hit the same drift twice because the water will be trashy and mossy.  When riding the rise one must be careful not to take out a lower unit on the bedrock in the river. Fishing this rise does take a little bit of practice and it helps to know where the main channels are in areas like Cane Island, Wild Cat shoals, Round House and at Rim Shoals.  Working all the intricate nooks and crannies of the river will be productive.  Generation patterns must also be conducive to fishing the rise.  The past couple of years have seen lots of rain which has led to lots of generation pretty much all the time.  Normal rain patterns will bring back normal patterns of generation with shut offs during the evening with generation cranking up at 6:00 am or 7:00 am in the morning.

Working the rise in this fashion is fast paced and a highly productive method of catching lots of fish and provides a good opportunity of hooking a good sized brown trout as well.  Riding the rise isn’t something you can plan for but is a handy skill to have when conditions permit.  Working the rise requires a skill most do not have and few fly fishing guides have this skill. Only a hand full of highly experience guides with lots of years on the water have acquired this skill as it takes lots of practice.

© 2010