netboy

Foam body, deer hair wings and a trailing shuck.

Here are some pictures from Dally's website... Odyssey Photo Essay – The Ozark Fly Fisher Journal (wordpress.com)

Sulphur hatch is starting up on the White. The last few days they started hatching around 9ish in very shallow water. Yesterday I had trouble finding the right fly and only caught 6 amongst many willing risers. So, when I got home, I tied up some new versions of sulphur dries and one of them worked well today. Had a much better morning today. I ended with a dozen and missed about that many more due to setting the hook too soon. Caught some nice ones including this 20" which was fun in the shallow water as it is all visual.

Congrats. The count for the top 2 teams was really close. I'll bet next year will be your year.

I checked the radar forecast when I got up this morning and it showed rain coming around noon, so I went to the State Park and got there at 7. Walked up a couple hundred yards and started with the white/peach egg. Caught 3 on that and then started seeing some fish rising. I switched to a sulphur crackleback and a few minutes later hooked a big cuttie. He put up quite a fight and after about 15 minutes and chasing him halfway back to the walk-in point, I finally got him in the net. Beautiful male in his spawning colors. Caught 2 more rainbows and then started hearing thunder so I left at 9. Lots of rain and thunder here at the house right now. We did need the rain.

Also, it would be great if they published the anticipated release times on the daily SWPA Generation Schedule so we have some idea of the flows.

Thanks for the heads up. I was above Ackerman yesterday when they started the release at 8am. It hit there just before 9am and I think at least one guy got caught on the wrong side of the river as the water came up very fast. It made for a short day of fishing. It does seem strange that they have started releasing the water at 8am the last couple of days. I know they are concerned about water temps but seems like they could hold off until later in the morning to allow for more fishing time. With that said, I doubt they care much about us fishermen.

Those are some really nice bluegills. WTG

A male brookie is probably the prettiest of all the species we have here in Arkansas.

SWPA schedule showed minimum flow for today so I headed to the Ackerman access early this morning. As soon as I got down the stairs, I noticed the water was way lower than normal minimum flow. Apparently they were not running the siphon so the only water coming down was from the "house" generator. The water was a good 6 inches lower than normal. First thing I did was re-rig with a 7x tippet and a size 18 soft hackle. The fish were stacked up in the deeper runs and it was fun fishing as you could see most of the takes. Caught fish on the soft hackle, midges, parachute Adams and small unweighted eggs. I lost count of the numbers, but it was probably around 40ish. Caught some good size rainbows and a really pretty brookie. I saw 2 big browns, but they both spooked when I made a cast to them even though the cast landed well upstream of them. Here's a couple of pics...

I took the boat up to the State Park this morning and the water was too high for wading, so I anchored upstream of the area that I have been wading and drifted flies back through it. I started with a tiger tail and hooked a nice 23" rainbow on the fourth cast. It put up quite a fight in the stronger current with some nice jumps. Caught 4 more on the tiger tail and then switched to a crackleback and caught a few more including a fat 21". Before I left at 11, I started to see some fish rising so I tied on a tan mayfly dry fly and caught 1 more. Here's the two largest ones...

I took the boat up to the dam and ran down to the state park to a protected shoreline that is wadable (barely) at the 150 mw flows that we are having. There were a few sulphurs hatching from the flooded grass so I started with a sulphur colored soft hackle and caught a few on that. I started seeing a few fish rising so I switched to a size 16 sulphur dry fly and caught 5 more on that including a nice tiger trout and a decent rainbow. Lots of boats out

It is fortunate that we have 2 rivers to choose from with the ever changing SWPA schedules.

Finally starting to see low water on the Norfork as well as reduced flows on Bull Shoals. I met a friend and we went to Ackerman access this morning to be greeted by minimum flow. Fishing was good using an egg/midge combo early and then switching to a green butt soft hackle later on when some caddis started hatching. Ended the morning with around 3 dozen rainbows with a few nice ones in the mix. Missed quite a few strikes with the soft hackle by setting the hook too soon. Here's a few of the better ones...

We had minimum flow on the Norfork this morning for the first time in weeks. Fishing was good using soft hackles.

Be sure to try some of the Cuban restaurants in Little Havana. Some great food. This one is probably the most famous... Versailles - The World's Most Famous Cuban Restaurant® (versaillesrestaurant.com)

Looks like a great trip. You guys have fun.

I think flood stage would be the top of flood pool for each lake. Bull Shoals top of flood pool is 695. We are currently at 671.

This year may be different as the agreement has a clause that states "only when the 4-lake system flood storage exceeds 50% full." I don't think the lakes are currently that high, so the argeement may be a moot point.

Here is a link to the COE agreement... COE agreement

There are 2 types of saltwater catfish on the Gulf coast...Gafftopsail and hardhead. The Gafftops are great eating, the hardheads are not. First one is Gafftopsail second one is a hardhead

Just checked the flows and Norfork also opened some spill gates today.

I took the boat up to the dam this morning and just before I got there they opened 9 spill gates. Water was running pretty hard and I only had my fly rods rod with me. I anchored in the calmer water (which was still moving pretty fast) and caught four using the heaviest white shad flies I had with me. Only stayed about 2 hours so it was slow for me. I did not see any shad coming through but the shad flies were the heaviest stuff I had with me. My guess is that they will continue to run water to lower the lake as much as possible before the April 15th agreement with the rice farmers downstream kicks in... but who knows????

That's a pig. Congrats....

Wow. I was on a 28 day in country and 28 day home schedule and used to commute from Houston to Kuwait, Nigeria, Angola, Trinidad, Brazil and other garden spots where oil was found for the last 15 years of my working life. I always felt safer getting on the airplane than driving my truck to the airport in the Houston traffic.