Bad Day For The River

[taxidermist]

Saturday the wife and I put in as Wildcat and ran up river to the islands. Had to drag over the first big shoal.

We finally after the crowd left the second shoal at the upstream isalnd went on up to White Hole.

We counted 33 dead brown trout from 16 to 22 inches and stopped at 100 rainbows.

There was almost zero water flow.

Even the guys in driftboats were having to walk the boats over the shoals going down river.

We say lots of people wearing nothing more than jeans standing waist deep in the holes you know trying to get the cast a bit farther out.

We need some real studies done on the stress levels that low flow induces. we saw a lot of large browns on the heads of the shoals and at the foot of the shoals, I suspect the ones at the bottom of shoals were there for O2. But the big broans at the top of the shoals were not feeding and did not spook easy either.

Is the CoE trying to kill fish??? or the heavy fishing pressure and low O2 doing it.

Several of the browns had small zebra midges and glow balls broke off deep.

Do you know how hard it is for me to thrwo back and dead fish thats perfect in color and could be salvaged for a mount??????????? I just kept saying oh hell no!!!

After the one generator came on line and the flow increased the fishing really picked up.........

We arrived back ath Wildcat just at dark and were catching nice bows all the way after water flow improved.

[laker67]

That's a shame on the numbers of fish that you found dead. I thought arkansas had installed some 02 injectors. It sounds like the fish with fly's in their mouths, were breakoffs that never recovered from the stress of the fight. 100 dead fish every day is like 20 limits coming out of that small area you were fishing. Thanks for the info.

[Ham]

Seeing (and smelling) lots of BIG dead trout this time of year keeps me from fishing QP on Norfork until after rthe thermocline breaks up and the water and weather cool significantly. I don't want to add to the problem. A higher minimum flow would help; I'm hopeful that it will eventually happen.

[taxidermist]

I dont know the O2 level but it has to be low. Several of the bait guides are complaining about the dead fish. ONe generator one would fix the problem.

I caught a large raibow yesterday that did not make it. Worked her a lot trying to get her going but then the water was low and wadable in many manyplaces were boats are normally.

My boat is a flat bottom river jon aluminum that will float in almost nothing of water, river is so low I am thinking hard about putting my 4 hp motor on and then I doubt I can do much but go down stream over the shoals.

Ditymo is making its way down stream, I am seeing some as far down now as Rim Shoals.

When the water does come up its almost impossible to fish because of the ditymo, moss and other plants coming down river.