netboy

Here is the latest update on Bull Shoals from the COE... https://ozarkflyfisherjournal.wordpress.com/2020/06/06/and-now-they-are-off/

They shut the spill gates today so should be back to normal for awhile. I guess it will depend on how much rain we get next week from tropical storm Chistobal.

Looks like she is having a great time.

Well I am not that mad at them to go out in this kind of water. May try the Spring river.

They just bumped it up to almost 28k.

Drove up to Bull Shoals dam to check out the flows. They are running 6 generators and then another 12k cfs over the spill gates for a total of 26.5k cfs.

I vote for the Eleven Point.

We all had prop motors. Jets were no bueno because of the floating grass that would jam the intakes. I had a 20 foot El Pescador skiff with a 140 Suzuki and could jack it up and run over 6" of water.

The design of the boat looks great. It's hard to see in your picture but did you do a tunnel in the hull? That is one thing that is missing on most river boats up here. I had a shallow water flats boats on the Laguna Madre in South Texas and they all had tunnel hulls with the Bob's hydraulic jack plate. The jack plate is great as you can raise it going over shallow areas and lower it back down when you need to. I am surprised I don't see them up here. Great idea on the airboat bottom covering. I had a friend that had an airboat in Port Aransas Texas we used to run over oyster beds, sandbars and whatever else to get some to our duck blinds. https://www.ebay.com/i/223780466300?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-213727-13078-0&mkcid=2&itemid=223780466300&targetid=4580221852015640&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=&poi=&campaignid=395665040&mkgroupid=1225955674700145&rlsatarget=pla-4580221852015640&abcId=1129776&merchantid=51291&msclkid=0cd3de395dc4113a9de580e8fc5923f2 Maybe you should think about going in to the boat building business. Good read... thanks.

Great job on the build. Did you open it up to see how fast it will go?

The trout were still very active at 61 degrees. It was strange to handle one to unhook it and feel it's body temp much warmer than normal. I know that mid 60ish degrees is about the normal temp on the Spring river and Eleven Point most of the summer and the trout do well. If it gets up into the low 70's then there may be a problem, but I am confident the COE is in contact with AGFC about these issues. Also good to know that the water coming out is at the bottom of the spill gates which is now about 44 feet below the surface, so not quite as warm.

I read that the Tiger trout to be stocked are triploids. That's a first for the Arkansas trout fishery.

This is from Dally's blog. https://ozarkflyfisherjournal.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/beat-that-on-your-first-day/

I launched at Wildcat this morning and the water was running at 13k. It is odd that they are running around 10k thru the spill gates and then only have one unit generating. The water temp at Wildcat was 61 degrees and it was 49 degrees a couple of days ago. I can never figure out their logic... why not just run 6 units for the same result and keep the water colder and make $$$ on the electricty? At any rate fishing was good with some fat rainbows including this one...

We had over an inch of rain in the Cotter area last night so the river was brown this morning. I took the boat up to the dam to find clear water and then got out and waded an area that is good on the one unit of water they were running. Fishing was great with some really fat rainbows, one cuttie and a nice brown. I caught some early stripping a crackleback and then switched to a Y2K/ruby midge combo later in the morning. I guess today may have been the last day for wading since they are supposed to open the spill gates tomorrow. Here's a few pics...

Looks like it is finally happening., https://ozarkflyfisherjournal.wordpress.com/2020/05/25/bull-shoals-spillway-opening-wednesday/

I saw that the White was at minimum flow this morning so I made a quick trip after the rain stopped. The creeks were flooding and pumping muddy water into the river. I found clear water on the opposite bank and caught some nice rainbows as well as this pretty brown. The first pic shows one of the feeder creeks flowing into the river. I left around 11 just before another round of storms hit. The river here at Cotter now looks like the Mississippi.

Fishing has been great on the White... Some caddis still coming up and today saw quite a few sulphurs. Time to break out the parachute sulphurs in size 16. They worked good this morning.

Just looked at the COE water release website and noticed they added 2 new columns. One shows the real time spillway release and the other shows real time total release. I guess they are getting ready for some big time releases. Much easier to see the whole picture now. https://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/data/tabular/htm/bulsdam.htm

I use a couple wraps of lead wire on the hook before I tie them.

Took my wife out this morning and we waded up from Cotter access. We had minimum flow and there were some trout rising to midges and a few caddis. We started drifting with an elk hair caddis and the problem was with the slow current from minimum flow we weren't covering any water. I switched to an olive crackleback and things picked up. Long casts and stripping it back worked great. We caught lots of rainbows and 6 browns. We had many trout come completely out of the water when they hit. They were still hitting when we left around 11:00. Nothing huge today but still some nice ones...

I checked the flows for Bull Shoals this morning when I got up and was surprised to see minimum flow. It was scheduled to be around 1 full unit. I grabbed a quick cup of coffee and left the house at 6:15. Got to the parking area and in the water by 6:45. Fish were already coming up to midges and a few early caddis. I caught a nice rainbow on the second cast and then it was steady dry fly action on the elk hair until they blew the horn at 9:00. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Caught some really nice rainbows along with 1 brown. Fish are fat and healthy this spring. Here's a couple of the better rainbows and the one brown...

Those are some nice ones. 🙂

This morning started out pretty slow with lots of midges hatching and only a few trout coming up for them. Then around 10 the caddis started popping and within a few minutes there were trout everywhere. It's amazing how quickly the trout react to a caddis hatch, almost like someone rang the dinner bell. Caught lots of rainbows, 1 cutthroat around 15" and a pretty brook trout that was 12". No browns so I missed the slam. Caught a few early on a size 20 parachute Adams and then switched to a size 16 elk hair caddis later. Here's a couple of the better rainbows...

Those are some big ones. Congrats to them.