Ham

23) Central Stoneroller a Flyfer!

22) Eyetail Bowfin caught 2, lost 2, and missed another bite.

21) Ozark Bass from a back eddy or on the rocks

Thanks Dave. I’m trying. It seems like I take one step forward and two steps back sometimes.

I see you trollin

20) Golden Shiner so Snakehead, Bowfin, and Spotted Gar were trolling me pretty hard. I got bites and finally hooked a snakehead that jumped and immediately threw the frog. but a saw groups of small fish dimpling the surface. I was confident they were NOT the usual top minnows and I thought there was a chance they might be Golden Shiners. I had to do extensive re-rigging to come up with a way to throw a size 24 with a tiny bit of worm at them. I had to hook a bunch of them before I got one to hand. Sadly, they were on the small side which made it more difficult. So, then I had to rig up my 6 wt and go through multiple fly boxes looking for a small fly enough to get eaten. Again, it took too much time and aggravation, but I finally got one to hand. not the first time catching Golden shiners on fly, but I was Glad to get it done.

So 4 years I reached out to AGFC to ask about where to fish for them and I was told it was a waste of time because it was a needle in a haystack trying to find them. Last year I asked again and was given some suggestions as to where to try. basically, they might be in any ditch or Creek or bayou or slough that’s is connected to the lower Little Red River, lower White River, Cache River, or St Francis River. IMO, populations are expanding rapidly. Now that they are in the St Francis, they are gonna do so well. they are a frustrating fish, but I’m having fun figuring them out.

Yeah John, I’ve never caught a pretty one.

Yes Jeff, we eat the snakehead. I call them ditch walleye. Long fillet. White, firm meat. Very mild flavor. Basically you taste the way you cook it. Beer batter, grill, or corn meal batter. It’s Good, but claims it’s the best fish you’ll ever eat seem overstated to me.

19) Cardinal Shiner It required some patience and a couple of fly changes before I could hook and hold one

18) Northern Snakehead kinda proud of this one

17) Longear Sunfish

16) Northern Rock Bass

15) Banded Sculpin

14) Ozark Sculpin

Yep

The flaw with it is that some counties randomly decide that a section of river is non floatable even though it clearly is. A wealthy landowner that has a connection with a county judge can have it ruled “unfloatable” and run barbed wire across it to keep his cows in. The same cows that he lets ruin the streamside.

"Copolymer lines are cheap at the cash register but, in my experience, can be quite expensive on the water in lost fish. Only one I've ever loved is the original P-Line CXX. " You pay your money, and you take your chances. MIllions of fish are caught on house brand lines that I would never consider using. I have literally caught thousands of fish using copolymer lines and I have ZERO concerns about the quality of those type lines costing me a fish. P Line is a good line. I really like CX Premium as a finesse line.

There are wadable areas on the White when they are generating. They might not be where you want to fish are large enough for your time, but you can catch fish. See below. There is wadable water up by the dam. You need to follow the Special regs carefully. There is wadable water off Denton Ferry Road. There is wadable water at Cotter. There is wadable water at Buffalo City. Minimal areas that you can wade when they are running water on the Norfork. Sorry. it is what it is. You could easily rent a boat on the White and use it as a water taxi to motor to a spot. Anchor the boat. Get out and wade. Too many spots to list. You could always get a guide, but I know that is expensive and not always possible for everyone. Get the COE app (Little Rock District). It will give you "real time" water levels and release rate. You should figure on water heading downstream at 4 miles an hour. It can take a while to drain down depending on how much they were running. Err on the side of caution always. The water is very cold and you might not have anyone around that can help.

I got my box too. I thought I was chipping in a little extra, but was actually 2 Pennie’s short. FWIW : you could have sent mine the cheapest route possible

CheaterScope is very helpful even if you aren’t video game fishing. Being able to run a series of brush piles and quickly see which ones have active fish on them w/o dropping a single time. For me, it would be huge just staying lined up with brush piles and being able to present lures properly with maximum efficiency. I think it would be huge for White Bass fishing too, but that’s a theory for me. I don’t have CheaterScope yet.

Good Job Jeff! Sounds Great!

I dug around and found that "Pool Three" or really ZONE Three is from the old hatchery dam to the park boundary. I only ever fished in Zone 1. The people in Zone 2 were crazy and I was with my family so I had minutes to fish. I would like to fish Zone Three sometime or better yet downstream of the park boundary.

RR 100 % for sure has lots of Knobfin Sculpin. I bet other stuff too especially Pool Three or the river below it.

It’s weird getting complimented and hated on at the same time. What the heck? Dave sand bags really hard. Every time I looked up he was catching or releasing a fish. Somehow, he insists that he caught less fish than I did. And he of course worked his Green Sunfish magic again. I think he caught more fish than me, but he can’t count or keep up with how many he has caught. I was really distracted by high numbers of suckers swimming around. I tried for them , but got no love at all. it’s a fun enough place to go once a year during C&R.