Fishing and Lake Temp Report 1/17/2011

Adam with 24 incher

The predicted generation report has been pretty accurate as of late except for this past weekend of course.  It wasn’t off by much though. We just didn’t get as much water as predicted but that is an OK for the fishing.  We started this past Saturday morning with just over three units.  Marc and Aaron are frequent fishers with Fly Fish Arkansas and they brought a buddy from the Chicago area with them to show off the White River and as you can see from this photo Adam ended up with the best fish of the day at 24 inches.  Adam also hooked and landed a 20 inch fish as well as did Marc.  Aaron landed an 18 inch fish on the second drift of the morning which was a good start to the morning.

Marc with 20 incher

Marc began the morning fishing with Jeff M who was helping me out with this trip.  In the afternoon Aaron fished with Jeff and did out fish us as far as numbers went.  We worked an area from the State Park down to the Junk Yard or Bruce Creek Shoals a stretch of about 3 miles.  Adam caught his fish in the middle of Cane Island on the Marion Co. side late in the afternoon.  The glare was in our eyes and we did not see the fish until his head came to the surface.  We just thought it was another rainbow as it did not fight well until it saw the boat and realized it was hooked.  Adam did a great job of playing this fish.

Aaron with 18 inch fish

Many thanks to Aaron, Marc and Adam for fishing with us and look forward to the next trip in Feb.  They are hoping for a shad kill which they had the opportunity to fish last year.

Here is the lake temp report:

Lake Temps

As you can see the lake temps at the surface are higher than we need for a shad kill to occur.  I don’t have high hopes for this even this year but I have been wrong before.  As you can see the lake level is down to 648.4 feet above MSL (mean sea level ) or 6 feet below normal pool elevation of 654.00 MSL which is considerable lower than this time last year when a conduit gate was opened up for 5 days to help lower the lake level.

Fishing:  So far it has been one heck of a January in that every trip as produced good brown trout.  A guide always loves it when a fisherman says to him that it’s the best fish he has ever caught and that he had a great day day on the water.  The catching is not always this great but the fishing is always good on the White River when spending time with some super folks like Aaron, Marc and Adam.

We were using two fly rigs of 12 feet from the indicator and bouncing on the bottom.  Unreal eggs and glo bug yarn which is available at Wishes & Fishes Fly Shop as are the eggs.  I love those 2499 SP-BL hooks from Tiemco.  We were using them is sizes 12 and 14 with fluorocarbon tippett from Maxima in 4X.  This line just disappears in the water and has great know strength plus it stretches just a bit to allow for some shock of a sudden hook set.  And for $18.95 for a 200 yard spool it is a great value.

If you live in the Memphis area Fly Fish Arkansas will be speaking to the Mid South Fly Fishers on April 5 2011 so be sure to attend the discussion on catching big fish on low or no generation water. A how to and which flies to use and how to rig.   February and March are great months to fish so book your fishing adventure by calling Jim at 870-404-8906  We can accommodate groups of up to 10 folks with the better guides on the river.

Good Fishing.

One Reply to “Fishing and Lake Temp Report 1/17/2011”

  1. I’ve never been Fly fishing, I have a 8w Fly rod. but have never caught a thing on it. How much is a trip? What do I need to come fishing? I’m coming to the White River soon just to see what it is like.

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