netboy

They shut the water off around noon today so I went to the C&R zone at the dam. Caught some nice rainbows, 1 cutthroat about 16" and a Tiger trout that was about 13". They stocked the tigers last fall and the ones I caught in the fall were all around 8 inches so it looks like they are growing pretty fast. They were all triploids so I guess that's why. Here's a couple pictures of the better rainbows. One on a Y2K and the other on a Ruby midge.

Opps, forgot to add the picture...

Got my first Pfizer shot this afternoon by BRMC at the Baxter county fairgrounds. Very well organized and no problems. In and out in about 10 minutes. Next one is 3/5.

Gonna be pretty cold down south also. Just talked to my friend in Corpus and they are expecting some really cold weather. Possible fish kills from the cold and low tides.

That is a bull red for sure.... The smaller ones are fun on a fly rod but I imagine there was some chasing going on with that guy.

Well we finally got on a list. My wife called around today and found the best lead yet. She talked to Walmart and Walgreens and they said it was coming but they had no real plan or list at this time. They said load their App to get on the list. We did that but both their App's took our info and then said the vaccine wasn't available in our location at this time. She then called the Mom and Pop pharmacy in Viola and they put us both on the list and said they had many cancellations due to the big push by Baxter Regional today and we were about number 200 on the list and they are doing 40 per day. Looking better. Our neighbor just got released from the hospital after 2 weeks of some serious Covid respiratory issues. Thank you China for this masterfully planned plandemic. 👿

Neither can I.

A few more from the good old days in Texas before they removed the oil rigs... 1. Cobia (aka Ling) 2. Grouper 3, Nice Kingfish my daughter caught, it was as long as she was tall.. 4. A few flounder from Galveston bay

A few pics of Red Snapper trips from the old days on the Texas coast...

Thanks Ham. I don't listen to the radio very often so I missed the announcement.

Well the Covid vaccine distribution in Arkansas is a complete disaster. I am 72 and in the 1-B category. The local radio station (KTLO) said that you have to take it in your home county. We live in Marion county and the only place is a Harp's pharmacy in Yellville. Well OK, we call them and try to get on "the list". Guess what, no list. They said we need to just keep checking their website to try to get an appointment. That was 2 weeks ago and no appointments. So today we call some pharmacy in Mountain Home that is "designated" to administer said vaccine. They said we will put you on the list. Oh great, but wait... she says I am number 2,200 on the list. Well Okay then when can I expect the shot? She says it will be months as they can only give about 100 PER WEEK, as they have no one other than the pharmacist to give the shot and he has more important stuff to do. So why would the state rely on small mom and pop pharmacies with no staff to roll this out when our local hospital and their outlying clinics have probably a couple dozen trained personnel that can do the injections?

Eat the shrimp and throw soft plastics for the trout and reds.

Met a friend at the ramp at 9 and ran the boat upstream to some wadeable water. SWPA was running 4 generators so that opens up lots of areas for wading. We had the best luck with small egg patterns under an indicator and landed lots of rainbows along with 1 cutthroat. I had a really nice brown take a swipe at a small rainbow I was landing but never saw him again. I did get 1 nice rainbow that put up a good fight on my 4wt. The cold front came through around noon and the wind started howling so we called it a day.

Lightweights... I graduated in 1966.

Got that. Fish are pretty adaptive. They move upstream towards the colder water coming from the feeder springs.

Well maybe over a million years it can change, but not that much over 50 years. BTW.. that pic is pretty good after what I look like these days after a few skin cancer surgeries. PSA.. wear your sunblock...

It is my understanding that they do spawn in the White river during the winter. I just didn't get your post about summertime water temps.

Not following your logic Wrench... They close it for Nov, Dec & Jan. That is when they say the browns spawn.

Another interesting question... Al states in the original post that "brown trout have not proven to be able to reproduce anywhere in the Ozarks". With that said I wonder why AGFC closes the Bull Shoals C&R area to all fishing from Nov 1 thru Jan 31 to accommodate the brown trout spawning efforts??

Obviously the North Fork suffered a huge loss of trout during the 2017 flood as did the Eleven Point. I heard stories of many dead trout on both rivers that got stranded when the water went down and I am sure many more were washed downstream and died from the warmer water. The Eleven Point has bounced back and is fishing pretty good now. I would attribute that to the stockings by MDC. I fished the North Fork with a couple of good fly fishermen in October and it was a tough day to say the least. Haven't been back since and don't plan on going back any time soon. It may take many years to replenish the rainbow population on the North Fork if we wait on natural reproduction. With that said I think a couple of truck loads from the hatchery would speed up the recovery and not alter the genetics of the trout in the river. the

Since those "wild" rainbows originally came from a hatchery how can they now have "wild" trout genes? I am not a biologist but I don't think genetics change over time. There is a rather large industry that makes millions of dollars testing DNA and reporting an individual's ancestry through many generations. JMO

I think the best solution is for MDC to stock rainbows. The rainbows that are there now came from the early stockings. MDC stocks rainbows on the Eleven Point and they are some of the prettiest trout I have caught anywhere.

Well it's still better than sitting in the house. Interesting that there was ice floating on the river. We never see that on the tailwaters since they are pretty much constant temperature..

Yes they named it after Bill Ackerman (former head of the AGFC ) that helped establish the C&R area. It is also known as the Handicap access. Interesting story about that. When we were shopping for a house to buy up here 3 years ago we looked at a house about about 1/2 mile above the Ackerman (handicapped) access on River Road. We said we wanted to look at the house by the Ackerman access. Our real estate agent said well that is Bill Ackerman's house. It was a great house but sold before we were able to make an offer.

I went to Ackerman access on the Norfork this afternoon and had a good day. Caught some nice rainbows along with a 16" Bonneville cutthroat and then this nice Snake river cutthroat. Glad to see some of the Bonnevilles are still in the river. The Y2k with a ruby midge dropper worked great and then around 2pm a hatch of small mayflies started so I switched to a size 18 tan elk hair caddis and caught a few on top.