Great Fishing Below Bull Shoals Dam

[John Berry]

With most of our local waters either at flood or still very muddy, I took my clients to the Catch and Release section below Bull Shoals Dam to take advantage of the low, clear water teeming with trout. It has been sunny and the temperatures have hit the seventies. We did the best on black zebra midges but also caught fish on San Juan worms and Dan's turkey tail emergers. The big fish were a twenty inch brown, an eighteen inch rainbow and a twenty two inch cutthroat.

[Phil Lilley]

What are they running now at BSD?

[John Berry]

Phil, they were running three this morning. That is a great level for floating. We have had some low water the last few days and the Dam was clear as a bell.

[KATroutman13]

We floated in toons today. Looked like they were running 2. We floated from Wildcat to Rim and we caught a ton of fish. Only an 18" brown to speak of for size. It was a good day considering we left Kansas City at 11:00 p.m. last night, bought licenses at Walmart and then slept in the truck in their parking lot prior to fishing. Hoping to have similar luck tomorrow. Fishing the shoals was amazing. More technical nymphing, but with good concentration and decent technique, we were able to pick off a lot of fish.

If you all see two guys in inflatable pontoons tomorrow, say hi. I am the short fat one.

[John Berry]

I am glad to see that the river is getting back to normal and fishing well.

[joefish]

Just wondering about the smallie fishing below bull shoals dam if I were to take a canoe or kayak down this strech? Have not done much research on this section so it may be an opportunity since everything else seems to be flooded.

[Ham]

You could yak, but I Seriously doubt you'll catch any smallmouth above the mouth of Crooked Creek. If you want to try the White for smallies go down to the section around Sylamore Creek. Give it time to drop and clear though.

[RiverRunner]

I was thinking that the flood might wash some more smallmouth into the river below the Buffalo and around some of the creek mouths. I fish around Norfork quite a bit and there is a decent smallmouth population in certain areas. I caught a beautiful 3 lbs smallmouth near Job's Island a couple of years back on a 1/16 oz. jig. It may sound trivial compared to the losses people are having to endure, but I am very concerned about the fishery below Norfork after this flood. Also, I heard that the hatchery at Mammoth had a major fish kill due to the flood. This is not looking good for the river this year.