AR River / Zink Dam access Report 3/31 &4/1

[Bill Butts]

Greetings Folks~

My long-time fishing buddies John Smallwood and Mike Crocker and I fished the AR River on Friday and Saturday. Both mornings we were the first fishermen at the spots we chose to fish below Zink Dam, but to our surprise there was almost no activity until the sun warmed the water enough to generate some feeding activity. This was our first experience with not finding it good to very good in the very early morning.

Along with catching a bunch of male white bass (mostly small), we were blessed for our efforts both days.

On Friday, with the water between 800 and 500 cfs, John improved his personal AR River best on Stripers by landing and releasing a 9#er.

On Saturday, with the water between 1800 and 1200 cfs, I was fortunate to land a Hybrid Striper just shy of 9# that dragged me at least 200 yards downstream (in this case, almost the width of Zink Dam), and later a 16#, 31" Striper. Both personal bests for me, and released.

If I can get the photos edited and attached, they will appear below. There wasn't a photo of John's fish since we were about 800 yards apart at the time.

I felt kind of bad I wasn't there, but it is the first really nice striper or hybrid he's caught that I wasn't there to photograph.

Lots of Springfield/Branson area fishermen on Saturday, and a several from Tulsa area.

It is beginning to produce fish that I have been hearing about for 25 years.

The best is of course yet to come over the next few weeks.

[Okieflyfisher53]

Bill,

I was a day and a half late to get into the fish. I decided to take my float tube to Lake Pawhuska and fish for bluegills and redears on Saturday. Caught 1 bluegill, 1 redear, 1 spotted bass, and 2 rainbow trout. I did honey-do's this morning and went to the river around 1:30 this afternoon. I ran into Rodney and Jason as they were leaving. They did well this morning and then someone threw a switch and turned them off. I fished for a little over 2 hours and caught 1 little white bass and 1 gar. There were gar everywhere! The water level was pretty low this afternoon, not sure if that had anything to do with the poor fishing or not. With DST in effect, I will be hitting the river after work in the coming days.

Steve

[daryl]

Bill,

Looks like you had a great time, hopefully I can make it in a couple of weeks, keep the reports coming in and the photos.

Daryl

[kayaker]

Bill,

What flies were you using? Floating or sinking line and what weight?

Those are two nice fish, good job.

[Bill Butts]

Kayaker,

The water was somewhat dingy so I used a #1 Chartreuse/White Clouser.

It got to be kind of a joke with my buddies because after loosing the fly I started with I used the next one for the rest of the day and all the next day.

It accounted for 50 white bass and about 15 Stripers including both in the pictures.

I even changed tippets a couple times (wind knot), re-tied many times, and very importantly kept touching up the hook point with my file. It's now in my fly box.

I'd say among all the folks I know that have fished down there over the past several weeks, a Gray/White Clouser has probably accounted for more fish that any other single color.

We have been using 8 and 9 weight rods, usually with floating lines and about 9 feet of leader, with 8-10# tippets. I think a #3 sink-tip is very advisable to carry especially when the water is 800 cfs or greater. Use no more than 4' of leader with a sink-tip line.

Hope this is helpful to you.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Well I got so far as looking it over on Monday morning, but didn't fish. Would it be worth my while to also take a casting rod with some topwaters?

[whitewoolybugger.]

Wayne, I didn't hook one this way, but had a few wacks at a crease fly on top.