netboy

With rain in the afternoon forecast, I made an early trip to the Roundhouse Shoals access. The current generation schedule has seen minimum flow at Cotter until late afternoon. I started out swinging and stripping a tan crackleback and caught lots of stocker size rainbows. Also missed quite a few by setting the hook too early. It is hard to pause when you see the fish boil on the fly, but they need to turn to get a good hook set. After my arm got tired from casting and stripping the crackleback, I switched to an egg pattern under an indicator and caught some nicer rainbows and a 16" brown. I am starting to see a few redds in both the White and Norfork so please be careful not to disturb them. Here's a couple of pics...

Rolled the dice again this morning and made a trip to Ackerman access. The COE ran water Monday through Wednesday afternoon so I felt confident it would stay down for a few days. Fishing was good with the low water. I had the best luck on an orange slush egg under an indicator, but also caught some on a sulphur crackleback and a few on a size 18 tan mayfly. There were lots of fish rising as I was walking out around noon. Ended the morning with around 30ish. Here's a few of the better ones...

Yesterday I mowed over about a dozen of what looked like your Meadow Mushroom pictures. Guess I need to learn more about mushrooms and pay attention.

Very nice workmanship. Congrats.

Sounds like some trout stocking from MDC wouldn't hurt. Also need to get some folks fishing (and keeping) those stripers since they are apparently concentrated in certain areas.

Happy Birthday Phil. I am 10 years ahead of you and have enjoyed every one of them.

Never even opened the box. Regifted them to a white elephant Xmas party with some fishing friends. They were a real hit.😀

Jeff Mancini, the Big Bite hawker, reminds me of Dan Akroyd doing the Bassomatic skit. I actually had an in-law relative give me a Big Bite kit for Xmass one year many years ago. All you can say is.... Gee thanks.

What, nobody mentioned the Mighty Bite. According to "experts" that big bite chunk out of lure and the red blood accents really get the fish excited.😀😀

I went to the Dam C&R area this morning after the rain let up. Got there around 7:30 and some TU friends pulled up and we got ready to fish. Fishing was a bit slow at first and then it got better as the morning progressed. Friends were catching on cracklebacks and I did best on an orange slush egg under an indicator. Caught around a dozen including a couple of nice ones. Early on I saw a guy pushing what appeared to be a kayak with lots of equipment on it. He went all the way up to the dam in the restricted area and I thought what the heck is he doing. Then another guy waded up and after talking with him, I found out they are doing a survey of the bottom substrate below the dam and the kayak was actually a robot with wheels under it. They ran the robot back and forth across the river to collect the data, Talked to them again when they left and asked how it looked. He said looks good so far. They are doing Norfork Dam next. Here is a link to one of their earlier projects at Dale hollow Dam and resulting picture of the bottom. Dale Hollow Dam – Seaside Engineering & Surveying LLC (seasllc.net) Then when I left the Marion County Game Warden was in the parking area and my TU friends and I had a nice visit with him. Always glad to see them checking things out. Here is one of the better ones....

The ones that have been in the river for some time have much better colors. The brookies are my favorite. With that said, I did see a poacher this morning on the gravel bar just below the first island. As I got closer he got very nervous and grabbed his stringer of fish and hightailed it. When I walked up to where he was fishing I saw his ziplock bag of shrimp that he forgot as well as a container of nightcrawlers. As far as I am concerned, a poacher is as bad as a common thief.

Rolled the dice and made a trip to the Norfork this morning. It has been a crap shoot on water levels over there the last couple of months. They run water through the flood gates and sluice gates for 4 or 5 days and then shut down to minimum flow for a day or two with no set schedule. Fortunately, it was a minimum flow day today and fishing was good. I had some decent dry fly fishing for an hour or so when some small tan mayflies started coming up. When that stopped, I had good luck on eggs and scuds. Ended the morning with around 30ish including a few nice ones. I lost the biggest fish of the morning to a leader to tippet knot failure after a 10-minute fight. Here is one of the better rainbows....

That catfish would have been good in the fryer. Good on you for releasing it, but I would have been tempted to keep it.

Those are some nice browns. Congrats.

Here is one that will get your attention... This is a big one. With that said, when I was working in the Niger River Delta in Nigeria some local guys came to our camp and tried to sell us a 24 foot python snake skin. No way to get it back through US customs. They would bring all kinds of stuff, but the best were some huge prawns they got out of the local marsh. They were 12 inches long and tasted just like lobsters. We paid about 1$ USD per pound and they were fantastic when the local camp chef prepared them on the wood grill.

Been there, done that....

Used to catch lots of redfish when we lived on North Padre Island. As far as eating, I would rank them lower than the other bay species down there. The meat was rather bland and a bit coarse for my taste. Problem was a smaller redfish around 16 to 18" was great eating, but Texas put a minimum size limit of 20" and most that we caught were in the mid 20 inch range. Now as far as catching them and the fight they put up, I would rank them number one on the list. They were fun to stalk on the shallow flats with a fly rod or small topwater plug.

I'll take a fresh red snapper, grouper, flounder, speckled trout, black drum, mahi or cobia over any fish that swims.

I use a small tungsten bead on the egg and also on the midge, so no split shot is needed.

I went to the Bull Shoals Dam access this morning as they were scheduled to run 1 unit starting at 7am. Fishing started out kind of slow, probably due to the rising water, but it got better around 9. I ended up with around a dozen nice rainbows and a really pretty male brookie. I think he had been in the river for a while to develop those colors. I had the best luck using a bright orange "slush" egg with a ruby midge dropper. Here's a pic of the brookie and a decent rainbow....

Our neighbor took this pic of a bobcat kitten outside their window.

I have been catching a few cutties mixed with the rainbows below the dam and at Rim Shoals. Nothing very consistent though.

Went to the State Park access this morning and had a good time. Lots of brookies on the shorelines and they would hit just about any fly. Probably caught a couple dozen on tan mayfly dries and tan cracklebacks. After that I moved to deeper water and started catching some better fish. A small Y2k and a midge dropper worked well. Here's a couple of the better ones...

I use the Weather Channel radar app. It is accurate for the previous 3 hours up to the present time. It then shows the "forecasted" radar picture for the next 6 hours... which sometimes is a craps shoot.

We had some rain early this morning but according to the radar forecast, it was supposed to end around 8. I decided to try the dam access as they were scheduled to run 1 unit starting at 8. When I got there 2 units were running which is a bit high for that area. Since I was already there, I got ready and walked downstream. I tied on an egg/midge combo under an indicator and caught a couple average size rainbows and 1 brookie. Then I hooked this pretty male rainbow and fought it for about 15 minutes. After that I started hearing thunder and checked my phone. A big storm developed over the lake so I made a hasty retreat. Note to self.... never trust the radar forecast or the SWPA forecasts.