netboy

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.

I've never taken my boat there on minimum flow. Minimum flow on Norfork = great wading.

I ran across this group of rainbows this afternoon on my way out from wading. I think the lighter colored one was the female and looked to be well over 20". I watched them for about 10 minutes and they just kept doing their thing. They were totally oblivious to my presence.

I just use 6 feet of 8lb mono tied to the fly line with a nail knot and then a tippet ring at the end followed by about 18" of 6x fluorocarbon tippet.

Not yet. The fishing has been too good here in my backyard this year. Last winter we had some really big flows on the White so that is when I made a few trips to the Spring.

Sounds like a good time except for the rude fishermen. That is one advantage here on the White. There is plenty of water to get away from the crowds. I rarely see any other waders when I fish. Seems everyone down here fishes from their boat including all the fly fishing guides.

I waded an area upstream from the Cotter access this morning and got this guy. I was fishing a Y2K with a ruby midge dropper and he took the Y2K. Also there was a BUNCH of boats on the river this morning. Strange that there were very few Thursday and Friday.

I stumbled on these rainbows doing their spawning thing. It's fun to watch the male chase the other males off the redd.

Try a bright colored Y2K fly tied with chartreuse and orange. It works here on the White river below Bull Shoals during the fall spawning season we are in right now. Here is one I caught this morning on the Y2K....

I waded the Roundhouse access area this morning and had a good time. Caught a bunch of rainbows, 3 average size browns and this fat rainbow. I was fishing a Y2K with a Ruby midge dropper and he took the Y2K. Water was up and running pretty fast so it took about 10 minutes to get him in on a 6x tippet. He took me into the backing twice. Overall I would guess it was close to 50/50 between the Y2K and the midge.

You guys be careful. We just lost a friend from Flippin to the Covid yesterday morning. He and his wife caught it and he passed yesterday at Baxter Regional hospital. It's amazing that we have had so little impact from Covid until now.

Those are some nice browns. Way to go.

They are a mutant version of rainbow trout, not the true golden trout from the Sierra mountains in California. This was from an internet search... Golden Rainbow are a hybrid form of Rainbow Trout that were developed over several years of genetic manipulation by a fish hatchery in the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. In 1954 a single Rainbow Trout developed that was a hybrid and was half normal and half golden.

Went back to the same area I fished yesterday and caught this nice rainbow on a ruby midge. I also had a big brown chase a small rainbow I was landing. He looked to be in the 28-30" range and was close enough that I could have poked him with my rod. I tied on a mop fly hoping to trigger a strike but no luck with that. It was exciting to see him chase that rainbow.