6/14/13 White River

[Ham]

I took a short trip in the middle of the day; stuff kept me busy in the morning or I would have hit BSL.

I want to fish Norfork so bad that I tried to fish it on 2 units AGAIN. I hope I'lllearn to forget about at 2. I eventually wished up and headed down to Reds Laning where I scratched out a few fish.

Water is still dingy down there and it has a lot of fresh sediment on everything.

I fished with a total of 13 fish. I have a decent Brown and some piggy Bows.

[hoglaw]

I really like the river around Reds. Even on the busier weekends, it always seems like you can get a little room to yourself. Last trip we took, we decided to try some new ground. The first day we fished the White Hole area and had plenty of company, so we bugged out and headed for Rim Shoals. There wasn't any water running so it was a little tricky getting down and I didn't want to blast through the water folks were fly fishing. We went around the west side of the islands and made it down fine. We caught some fish in the shoals and just below, and floated all the way down to crooked creek. Didn't see another boat. Finished the evening fishing the long holes above Rim and caught a few there too.

The next day (Sunday) we put in at Ranchette and had plenty of company again. So I decided to head towards Rim. Saw half a dozen boats parked at even intervals all the way up when I finally got above crooked, so I headed downstream and had my run-in with the rock. Finally called it a day wishing I had gone down to Red's. I'm anxious to learn more about the river downstream from reds. I really like that catch and release area as well as the water just above it where you have the long rocky banks in some deeper water, and one area with a good drop off and good current about half way between Red's and the C&R area. But I want to go miles below that C&R area towards calico rock.

Do you know how far down you can still catch good browns from Red's? How far below that do you start to get into the smallmouth with regularity? We caught half a dozen 12 inch smallies in the C&R area that were all FAT. Surely there are some big ones the farther you go down.

[Gavin]

My buddy Chris and me floated the Norfork with two running on Friday. Put in at Quarry and took out at the confluence 3 hours later. We caught some fish but its not a stunt that either of us want to repeat in a solo canoe or SOT kayak again. Nothing to hit.....but just a ton of fast, high consequence water. Drifter, Jon, or Jet next time. The faucet was going on at 10am and running till 7-8pm Thursday-Sunday.

[Ham]

Aww man Gavin. I bet I saw you guys. I was the knuckle head "trying" to fish 2 units solo in a jet. I talked to a couple of guys and mentioned a back eddy area where y'all might be able to fish. Sorry, we disn't talk more.

Smallmouth on the White has me very curious indeed. All the accidental ones I catch are fat and happy. I want in give the Mt View area a try.

Big Browns are where you catch them. I don't like any area below Buffalo City for them and think Rim and above is better, but I'm a numbers guy that stumbles on bigger trout occasionally.

[Gavin]

That was us...I was in the red solo canoe my buddy Chris was in the orange tarpon 120. Thanks for the tip, it payed off. Didnt catch many...but every one of them hit a #6 Pat's Rubberlegs. No love on typical tailwater flies.

[hoglaw]

The area behind the island at McClellans has been good to me in high water before.

I've always been told that browns can tolerate warmer water than rainbows. It makes me wonder if there's a good brown population below the Buffalo and below Red's. I hear you on they are where you find them. It seems like chasing them in low water, particularly on a sunny day is a waste of time. I talked to a "guide" at the Ranchette access for a while while we were out there last. He was catching sculpins on a spinning rod and taking them home to freeze them. I suppose you could always tight line sculpins in the deepest holes and hope for the best, but having done the sculpin thing before I knew what was what and having wounded and possibly killed plenty of large trout, it's something I don't really feel the need to do anymore. Maybe you could get by with a circle hook or something, but a gut hooked double digit brown can sour you on that kind of fishing in a hurry. It did me anyway.

We had a blast jig fishing in the White Hole area. It's just too crowded for me. We did see a monster there. My fiancee was bringing in a stocker rainbow in some water that was too deep to see the bottom. I was watching the fish come up, and up from the depths came a massive shadow. He came all the way up to the surface following the rainbow around kinda lackadaisically. I yelled at her to not reel the fish in and just let him play, and grabbed my big jerkbait rod. I ripped a dd78 right in front of his face and he never paid any attention to it. He just cruised right back down from where he came. This was no 5lb brown. It was a real heart stopper. Those fish don't get that big eating jigs and jerkbaits in broad daylight. I've got to figure out how to get into more of them aside from using sculpins and crawfish.

[Ham]

I'll use bait for catfish, walleye, and crappie. Fish I would be keeping to eat. As much as I would love to catch a huge brown, I'm not stooping to live bait to catch it because of the probability of gut hooking. I know it works, but at what cost?

[Ham]

Oddly enough, the only time a BIG Brown thought about eating a rainbow I was catching was on the NFOW.