Ham

I had a couple of real nice trips with my kids when they were little on RR. It will always be kind of special to me for that reason, but living less than 10 minutes from Norfork and from the White River probably kills any chance of me ever going back. Did you see any of the sculpins that live amongst the rocks? Beautifully colored and very large as sculpins go. My son and I caught a few on flies vertically fished between the large rocks. Big fun.

That's great. I appreciate what you're doing. I'll never partake, but I find it very interesting.

I feel certain that puked up craw was colored differently when it was alive. Hard to go wrong with olive or brownish colored tubes. The fun glitter added is more for a fisherman's benefit, but I'm an unrepentant color junkie so there. Color matters when it matters. The fuin is figuring out when it matters,

The same baits that work on the Buffalo or Niangua or Kings or the Gasconade or whatever SMB stream you like. No magic bullet for any particular stream. Use the right tool for that day's job.

Sounds great!

Some of us spend a fair amount of time outdoors. Hopefully, most of us are using sunscreen MOST of the time, but we all miss a spot or two or fail to re-apply or get so busy fishing that we never stop to apply sunscreen. My advice , Use sunscreen, but if you forget your unscreen or stay longer than you planned or whatever and turn a couple of shades of pink, you may want to try a product I've been using this year. I've had great results from the Equate version of a Banana Boat product called " Aloe After Sun Lotion". This product seems to help turn things around pretty quickly ; I'm noticibly less pink and with less pain almost immediately. Granted, I haven't cooked myself lobster red applied this and gone back to shockingly caucasian in 30 seconds, but it's pretty good stuff.

i'll try to behave.

But by all means, please continue to post fishing reports naming the creeks and rivers you're fishing.

The worst part about Crooked Creek being super low is the areas of slick bedrock with a thin layer of algae. Being as careful as I could be with felt soles, I've still fallen hard. Several areas that you WILL encounter are just plain difficult. Crooked Creek has a very narrow window for good fishing and good floating.

Oddly enough, the only time a BIG Brown thought about eating a rainbow I was catching was on the NFOW.

I'll use bait for catfish, walleye, and crappie. Fish I would be keeping to eat. As much as I would love to catch a huge brown, I'm not stooping to live bait to catch it because of the probability of gut hooking. I know it works, but at what cost?

Lots of people love a fluke for creek smallies. I never throw it. I'm either fishing from the yak or standing in the water and I don't have the rod angle I want for fishing a fluke. I catch more than a few doing other stuff though.

I try not to fish that far up lake, but lots of people make that area work well.

I'm sure it's gonna work for you. You'll have to put up with bass, white bass, walleye, gar, and possible stripers grabbing your crankbaits, but other than that you'll do fine.

Going upstream that whole way is going to be tough ; I'd go from Pyatt to Snow if I were y'all (jk). Crooked Creek will be fine UNLESS we get a huge rain and it's blown out. Otherwis they're gonna bite. That run gets plenty of looks so I would imagine any dangerous stuff has been cut out. Keep yours eyes open though. I have not made that run this year, but maybe soon.

YEP, in that higher flow, little junk seems to gets lost.I throw Zig Jigs and get bit early and often, but two units on the Norfork is like 6 units on the White. I wish they would run a soft one unit more like arpound a 1000 CFS. The area I saw y'all in is great o n an easy 1 unit. i really don't care for fly fishing from a boat much. It's better than not fishing, but I want to be wading when fly fishing. I'll use a yak as a water taxi. I'm gonna give em a beat down using the yak to access less pressured water IF we ever get minimal flow this summer. That'll be a fly rod deal.

With age, my eyesight and patience for dealing with big huge mult-fly ,leader, tippet fubars has declined. I start cutting that stuff off pretty soon these days. Really eats into your fishing time re-rigging.

Aww man Gavin. I bet I saw you guys. I was the knuckle head "trying" to fish 2 units solo in a jet. I talked to a couple of guys and mentioned a back eddy area where y'all might be able to fish. Sorry, we disn't talk more. Smallmouth on the White has me very curious indeed. All the accidental ones I catch are fat and happy. I want in give the Mt View area a try. Big Browns are where you catch them. I don't like any area below Buffalo City for them and think Rim and above is better, but I'm a numbers guy that stumbles on bigger trout occasionally.

I think all the shocking sticks are off the market, but someone somewhere has made their own. I'd just go buy a couple dozen at a bait store, but that's just me.

I took a short trip in the middle of the day; stuff kept me busy in the morning or I would have hit BSL. I want to fish Norfork so bad that I tried to fish it on 2 units AGAIN. I hope I'lllearn to forget about at 2. I eventually wished up and headed down to Reds Laning where I scratched out a few fish. Water is still dingy down there and it has a lot of fresh sediment on everything. I fished with a total of 13 fish. I have a decent Brown and some piggy Bows.

Hey ! I like Spotted Bass and Carp!

Tucker Hollow is as far up lake as I go, but I only make it up there a handful of times a year. There are plenty of walleye up there though. They may want too try Leadhill / Diamond City area instead, but I like em both for walleye.

The hook popping trick works great. I have unfortunately had to play that game three times as the patient and about five times as the "doc". IF the hook was stuck into an eye or a blood vessel or cartiage, I'd head to a doc ASAP, but otherwise "pop" it out. Many of these misadventures have been on a float trip and I'm hours away from professional help regardless.

So "Chestnut", you want to admit to any other game laws you routinely violate? I did read his post. He implied he would have shot the snake if it wasn't a watersnake. That attitude is crap. Shooting all snakes is illegal and is a poor behavior driven by fear and ignorance.

Water snake, but you had no legal right or any reason to kill the snake regardless of species.