netboy

Here is another White River fattie....

Chunky White River rainbow.

It is what it is. I think AGFC has done a great job creating a world class trout fishery here in Arkansas. Big thanks to Christy Graham and the AGFC folks. Here is a video I took yesterday of a pair of nice rainbows doing their spawning thing and another male trying to crash the party.

I agree. The browns seem to be skinnier, but some of the rainbows and cutthroats are fatties.

I could care less about a trout's genetics. They are just a fun fish to pursue.

It finally warmed up enough to get out and fish, so I took the boat up to the State Park. Fishing was good on the 1-unit flow and the fish were hungry. Caught a bunch of rainbows and 2 decent browns on a sculpin imitation fly. The south wind picked up and made it difficult to work the fly, so I left a bit early.

Here is a pic of one of the prettiest fine spots that I have caught. This guy was caught on the White River in early summer during the caddis hatch.

I would think they should be.

The Snake River one was caught in May during the caddis hatch and was in its spawning color phase. The Bonneville was caught in January. My understanding is that the cutthroats spawn late spring/early summer.

Here are a couple pics to show the difference between the Snake River variety and the Bonneville variety. First one is a Bonneville, second one a Snake River. I haven't caught a Bonneville since 2023, so they are getting pretty rare.

The weather finally warmed up a bit, so I was able to get out and do some fishing. SWPA schedule showed 1 unit all day. Fishing was good with lots of rainbows on a size 16 Y2K under an indicator. I also had good luck on bigger fish using a 1/32 oz olive and brown jig. Got this pretty brown on the jig.

When our Christmas lights came on last night the snow gave them a pretty cool effect.

Looks like we got around 10-11" here in the Cotter area.

Sorry to hear that. We lucked out here in the Cotter area. Big rains went to the south of us and snow went to the north. We ended up with about 1/2" of rain and then some cold temps. Probably gonna try Norfork tomorrow afternoon as they are showing minimum flow starting around 11ish

My daughter and her family are here for New Years, and she wanted to go fishing, so we headed to Ranchette this morning. SWPA forecast showed 1 unit all day and the weather was pretty nice for a change. We had a good morning with around 3 dozen rainbows between us and a few browns. Best flies today were olive and brown woolly boogers and also caught a few on egg patterns under an indicator. Only saw 1 other boat all morning. Here's a couple of the better browns.