5/24 report

[hoglaw]

Went down to my family's place Saturday and Sunday to celebrate mom's birthday. The generation is great right now with heavy water starting late morning and shutting off at night. We put in at our dock and floated about 4 miles or so to dripping springs. We had two gheenoes with small outboards and one solo canoe.

Yesterday the conditions were great. We started around 7 am and the water had fallen out. Heavy cloud cover had me amped up. I know ham limes sunny days on the white, but on the little red cloud cover is a major blessing. We caught more fish than we cared to count. Probably 80 or 90 between my brother and I. All of mine came on jigs. He caught them on a rebel craw and jigs. No big fish to speak of. Lots of very pretty 13s and 14s. Lost one good one in the swift water in the catch and release area. But all in all a great day on the little red.

[jtram]

Sounds like a good couple of days, love to see some activity on this forum, by far my favorite tailwater.

[Ham]

Sounds Great. I remember when I used to fish. Vaugely.

[Quillback]

Never have fished the Little Red, but it sounds like another great tail water fishery.

[hoglaw]

Little Red is awesome. Much different feel than Norfork and White for sure. I tend to catch my biggest "average" fish at the Norfork, but the stockers on the Red are a little beefier than the stockers on the White. All of the fish we caught had their fins fully developed anyway. A few "silver bullets" but most were very dark with some really deep purple, like this one.

The Red feels so much different than the rivers farther north. It feels a lot closer to fishing in low land cypress type rivers. You see lots of minks. There are boat docks all up and down it. The boats are more constrained in where they can go because there are periodic shoals that can't be navigated, even with a jet, unless they're generating. There is a ton of grass in it. Hydrilla maybe? During some parts of the year it gets so thick and matted that it just lays on the top of the water. So the grass can be a bit of a pain, but fish hang out in the seams between it and underneath it.

I've never caught a truly big fish from the Little Red. My best is probably an 18" brown. My step-father has an 8lb rainbow and handfull of 5lb browns from it. There are some big fish in it no doubt, but even though I grew up fishing there I've never really gotten into them. I'm sure jerkbait fishing can be good, but the rises are so dramatic that I've never really tried it. The jig is by far the best weapon for that river in my opinion, but maybe if I'd spend some time fishing the high water with a jerkbait I'd feel differently. I've just never been there during the right conditions for that.

I'm sure it's a good river for wading and fly fishing too, but a canoe or kayak is really where it's at on that river.

[Ham]

Its just a little too far away for me to spend much time on it. I would be interested in kayaking it.

[hoglaw]

You'd enjoy it for sure. It's definitely different scenery than fishing the White, and a lot less in terms of water fluctuations (they're either generating or they aren't). The cool part is you can float to and from any of the accesses and you're going to get on water that doesn't get pounded because of the shoals. Every inch of the river gets fished in some form or another, and the vast majority of it has boat docks on it with boats in stalls and ready to go, but they can't travel up and down between the holes very well. I've yet to do a float I don't like. The dam to Cow Shoals I've probably done the least because of the heavy crowds around Lindseys (which may be a thing of the past now), Cow Shoals to Swinging Bridge I've done the most (but the put-in is a long walk down stairs carrying a boat), Swinging Bridge to Lobo might be my favorite (but very long with lots of flat still water...need a motor for this one). I've never put in at Lobo becuause our place is about two miles downstream of it. So we'll float from our place to dripping springs, then from dripping springs to Ramsey (long still water float that's mostly accessible by boat, but one of my favorites).

I've yet to go below Ramsey. The next take-out is like 20 miles downstream, and there's a wier wall down there that keeps folks from coming up. So it's a ton of untouched water. But it gets warm and I doubt trout are much farther down than Ramsey most of the year. But it should be good warm water fishing. Just haven't done it yet.

[Plastic_worm]

Great report. That walk down w/ a kayak at Cow is tough, but the float to SB makes it worth it!

[jtram]

You'd enjoy it for sure. It's definitely different scenery than fishing the White, and a lot less in terms of water fluctuations (they're either generating or they aren't). The cool part is you can float to and from any of the accesses and you're going to get on water that doesn't get pounded because of the shoals. Every inch of the river gets fished in some form or another, and the vast majority of it has boat docks on it with boats in stalls and ready to go, but they can't travel up and down between the holes very well. I've yet to do a float I don't like. The dam to Cow Shoals I've probably done the least because of the heavy crowds around Lindseys (which may be a thing of the past now), Cow Shoals to Swinging Bridge I've done the most (but the put-in is a long walk down stairs carrying a boat), Swinging Bridge to Lobo might be my favorite (but very long with lots of flat still water...need a motor for this one). I've never put in at Lobo becuause our place is about two miles downstream of it. So we'll float from our place to dripping springs, then from dripping springs to Ramsey (long still water float that's mostly accessible by boat, but one of my favorites).

I've yet to go below Ramsey. The next take-out is like 20 miles downstream, and there's a wier wall down there that keeps folks from coming up. So it's a ton of untouched water. But it gets warm and I doubt trout are much farther down than Ramsey most of the year. But it should be good warm water fishing. Just haven't done it yet.

Never done it, but I believe there are good smallmouth numbers below Ramsey. I have family in Heber I may have to have scout for me.

[hoglaw]

Never done it, but I believe there are good smallmouth numbers below Ramsey. I have family in Heber I may have to have scout for me.

I have to think they're in there. There are a couple of docks below Ramsey so I know someone fishes it, but the folks from Searcy can't get up there unless the water is running hard, and if they do they risk getting stuck above the wier wall. There aren't any places to take out unless you have private access, so it would be a long float. But I'm determined to do it at some point.

My step dad's Ghenoe's are perfect for that kind of stuff with a little 3.5 outboard. You'd still be motoring for quite a while if it got late. I certainly wouldn't want to paddle it. But some day I'm going to do that float.