Trying To Plan A Trip

[bluebasser86]

Well this past year I got bit hard by the bug to catch a brown trout. Never have and after a few tries at other, closer locations I've decided that it looks like the White would probably be my best option. We are thinking we will probably shoot for mid/late March of next year, would that be a good time to be down there or is there a better time? We were planning on staying somewhere around Mountian Home so if anyone has any suggestions on a good place to stay it would be appreciated (cheap is good, it's a fishing trip so all we'll be doing is sleeping there.) I have a 16' Lowe Roughneck with a 60hp motor that would be an option for me to bring. I'm plenty confident in my boating skills but also have no desire to tear my boat/motor up or possibly get myself or anyone else hurt. So would putting my boat on the river be possible or is it too shallow/rocky. As long as I have about a foot of water I can idle along so I could go upriver and drift back down but only as long as there is enough water and it isn't going to drop suddenly because I'm not dragging it anywhere. Where would be the best section of the river to fish? We have no desire to keep any of the fish but I would like to get a decent sized fish that I could get measurements of and get a replica made, so an area with bigger fish would be a plus. Is this a river that you can figure out well enough to catch fish with a little research and planning or is an experienced guide a must to find and catch the bigger fish? Sorry to put so many questions in one post but I don't get many chances to make longer distance fishing trips so I'm really trying to get something solid planned to make this trip a success.

[Ham]

The following comments are just my opinions and everybody has opinions, but they are honest and without bias.

Leave your boat at home. You can rent a boat here if desired or required by the water levels, but talk to the person you rent from and make sure you understand some basic safety measures for the White ie NEVER anchor in current. The anchor is to keep the boat from drifting off when you stop for lunch on the shore in a non current area and always anchor off the bow off the boat. Also, if they are running a bunch of water, keep the motor running; when you get in a bind is not the time to struggle to get a motor started. The boats aren't too expensive and are of local design an manufacture for this river. You don't want to tear your stuff up and try to make what you have work if conditions it wasn't built for.

You didn't mention how you planned on fishing or how long you planned on staying. You should strongly consider hiring a guide for the first day. Tell them up front you'd like to catch a decent brown more than a bunch of rainbows and that you want to learn some things to help you catch fish on your own the next couple of days.

There are plenty of good guides in the area. Several of them post here, but not all. If you are going to fly fish get guide that specializes in that. If you want to use bait and lures, go with a guide that does that all the time. I don't know him, but Hotdawg Guide service seems to be very successful on catching big browns with bait and lures. I do know Larry Babin at Blue Ribbon Fly, John Berry, Davey Wotten, and Steve Dally that all fly fish guide and I would be happy to spend a day fishing with any and all of them.

The new regs have helped already. There are lots and lots of decent Browns in the river and I hope you catch one. Do read and follow all the fishing regs that apply. AGFC enforce to the letter of the law and they seldom give warnings.

March is a great time to be on the river with a shot at a big brown, but the Browns feed all year. I don't have a favorite time of the year to fish. IT can be REAL Cold and Wet in March, you probably shouldn't plan on tent camping. Pack good gear. It is significantly colder on the river than outside your motel room.

Also find out when they are having the Sowbug event. The river gets pretty crowded about then. Come back for the Sowbug, but plan a fishing trip some other time.

Pay attention to this board a few weeks before you head this way. There will be posts that can help you.

Good Luck!

[bluebasser86]

Thanks for the input. I spend quite a bit of time on the Kansas and Missouri rivers around here and I understand that they all have their own personalities that can make learning what you can and can't do on them a real chore. My boat does good on rivers and fairly shallow water but it's not a jet motor so if it gets too shallow I'd be in trouble which is my main concern with the fast rising and dropping water levels it sounds like the White has.

We would probably be mostly fishing spinning gear. I really like the idea of fishing jerkbaits, which is what I keep reading is a good technique for the browns down there. I've caught some of my biggest rainbows on jerkbaits fishing for bass in the put and take lakes around here and I've seen how aggressivly they react to them. I'm fine just casting Rapalas or small cranks and spoons also and would not be ruling out small jigs.

I would love to catch one on my fly rod but I'm not a very experienced fly fisherman so I would have to catch one on my regular gear before I tried flyfishing for them too much so I didn't feel like I drove down there and spent my time trying to catch fish with equipment I'm not skilled with.

We would for sure not be camping. I've seen it snow in March enough times to know that it's still to cold to be camping. I've seen some of the really nice lodges online but most are pretty espensive it seems like. We'll be down there for at least 3 days, maybe more, which is why we need to keep the price of lodging fairly cheap. We all have plenty of thermal gear, bibs, snowmobile suits, and everything else to keep us warm. I fish all winter long on the powerplant lakes around here so I know what you mean about the tempature differences. Thanks for the heads up about the Sowbug event, I'd be pretty upset if I got down there and the river was packed!

[rps]

I second the "leave your boat at home." It would be safe if they are running 4 to 6 generators for most of each day, but there is no guarantee that will be the case. 20 hours of water off and the chutes and runs do not average 12 inches deep.

Ham's other comments are all solid information.

Add Dave Capps to the list of guides in case Hotdawg is booked. I fished with him about 9 years ago and we had an excellent day for browns.

[gotmuddy]

We would for sure not be camping. I've seen it snow in March enough times to know that it's still to cold to be camping. I've seen some of the really nice lodges online but most are pretty espensive it seems like. We'll be down there for at least 3 days, maybe more, which is why we need to keep the price of lodging fairly cheap. We all have plenty of thermal gear, bibs, snowmobile suits, and everything else to keep us warm.

This febuary the wife and I camped on the buffalo river and the temp at night was in the 50s. never count out camping. I would leave the boat at home too, mainly because the boats on the white river are designed to run skinny water, and your lowe wont run as shallow. Check out www.rileystation.com for lodging/boat rentals. They have nice boats that are pretty cheap. I would suggest NOT fishing around norfork or the norfork river because all the browns will be small because they stocked a BUNCH of them this year.

[CFowler]

That time of year it's not uncommon to get rain events that blow out the river below crooked creek. By that I mean it's too muddy to fish for a day or two. So, the best areas to fish in that event are closer to BSD or the Norfork. That combined with the consistent fishing are reasons I'd recommend fishing the upper section between BSD and Cotter. Before I decided whether to bring the boat, I'd wait and see where water levels are. If it looks like really low water is likely for much of the time, I'd leave the boat home. Grind on someone elses prop!

Here's one piece of advice...I have property on the white and spend a good deal of time on the water, the number one thing that causes issues for people are those drag chains. If the water is high, don't use them. Also, don't run up and down the back channels. I rescue a handful of folks every year that get in trouble with that. There are plenty of fish out on the main river, trust me.

All due respect to Mr. Muddy but that is ridiculous. Browns are cannibals and that would only add food source to the Norfork. There are plenty of nice browns in there and certainly will be if you choose to go there.

If you are after browns that time of year you will do well to fish what ever lures you want as long as they're white. The fish on both rivers are pretty well dialed in on Shad at that time of the year.

Good luck!