Fishing Report - Weekend of June 27th and 28th

[Clay Goforth]

Two weekends in a row spent on the White River is almost too good to be true. I went last weekend with my Dad for Father's Day and then back over this weekend with some buddies for some R&R. There have been a couple of other reports already and you can see from those that it was a pretty good weekend. I'll say that this river is fishing better than I have seen it in a long time, producing large numbers and consistently dishing out 20"+ fish. There were six of us on the trip in 2 boats. We stayed at Rim Shoals with Gary and Paula Flippin, who are always ALWAYS so friendly and take care of everything you need.

On Saturday morning, the other boat decided to chase numbers on the fish and stayed around Rim Shoals, floating down to Crooked Creek and then on down to Rough Hole. Because we had put a small wager down in a Big Fish pot, my boat headed up river, making the haul to the dam. They were generating about 8,000cfs which is just outstanding water and we fished with about that much most of the day. The COE did crank it up to 10,000cfs later in the day and we started to see some trash coming down.

We put on the water about 7:30am and fished from the dam down through State Park. First fish for me was an 18" brown, second fish was a 16" rainbow, and third fish was a 21.5" brown.

We fished on, catching pretty consistently and continued to find really solid fish. My friend caught an 18" rainbow and we had some other really nice 15-17" fish.

We continued to fish around the area and then I finally tied into a good brown, thick bodied and 22" long.

(as you can see, we are a serious bunch)

All was going well until my buddy went to turn on the trolling motor and watched as the prop shot off and sputtered away upstream before sinking to the bottom of the river. We tried to fish around a bit more but the current was pushing and spinning us this way and that so we decided to break for lunch and go fix the trolling motor. The three of us had boated around 50 fish that morning which, is not an outstanding numbers day but I was after the money fish and was in the lead. We checked in with the other boat and they reported over 100 fish to the boat between the 3 of them but big fish was an 18" brown.

With the trolling motor fixed, we headed down to Rim and put in and motored down to the Crooked Creek area. The bite was still hot and we continued to rack up the numbers. The other boat wanted to do something a bit different so it motored up Crooked Creek a bit and they fished for smallmouth which reportedly were biting as well. We motored back up through catch and release at rim and fished the stretch of water about 1000 yards above back down to C&R and we found an incredible bite with doubles on almost constantly. We racked up the numbers there in a very short amount of time and ended with about 90 fish in the boat for the day and my brown remained at big fish. We kept a few for dinner and headed in to filet and fry up the fish.

We cooked dinner at the Rim Shoals Resort pavilion and just enjoyed sitting out on the deck watching big fish cruise the shallows, the biggest of which was a 30+" brown that came to eat some of the scraps from the fish we had cleaned. I happened to notice something else of interest chewing on a fish carcass and decided to have some fun.

You have never seen the likes of grown men running for their lives when I came up to the pavilion holding this.

A banded water snake...granted it was a good 34" in length, but a harmless animal, nonetheless.

We fished Sunday morning as well but were very relaxed with it, boating fish here and there but mainly talking and enjoying hanging out in the boat. All in all, a great trip with as many laughs as fish caught, great conversation, and a real weekend retreat from the rat race.

[Ccox1982]

Looks like the bite was hot all over the river. Me and my son fished the white hole resort to wild cat shoals stretch that weekend and the bite was really good. Great fish and report.

[Clay Goforth]

Looks like the bite was hot all over the river. Me and my son fished the white hole resort to wild cat shoals stretch that weekend and the bite was really good. Great fish and report.

I read your report. Great job. The river is fishing just great with the consistent generation of 8,000-12,000cfs. The bigger fish are getting dumb in the higher water and easier to catch.

Loved seeing your son with that big fish. Keep it up and he'll be hooked for life.

[joeD]

My neck hurts. Your posted pictures are just as bad as mine are Clay. Which is hard to do. Nice fish. Good beard. OK snake.

[Clay Goforth]

My neck hurts. Your posted pictures are just as bad as mine are Clay. Which is hard to do. Nice fish. Good beard. OK snake.

I couldn't, for the life of me, figure how to get the pics to turn right-side-up in the post.

[snagged in outlet 3]

Hey Clay,

Do you guide on The white up at the dam?

Fly fishing.

Pete

[Quillback]

I couldn't, for the life of me, figure how to get the pics to turn right-side-up in the post.

Something about the forum software that will always set the long side of the picture on the bottom. I can't figure it out either. Just need to remember that when taking pictures you are going to post.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I flipped my sideways on my phone and they still showed up sideways on the forum.

I probably should have my kids load them.

Sigh.

Pete

[Clay Goforth]

Hey Clay,

Do you guide on The white up at the dam?

Fly fishing.

Pete

Pete,

I don't. Knot for fly fishing (see what I did there). If you want to jig fish, then yes.

If you want an absolutely incredible fly guide, North Arkansas Troutfitters is just awesome. (www.northarkansastroutfitters.com) The main guide is Brock Dixon. He is a younger guy and is passionate about big fish on the fly. I know a few weeks ago, he had a multi-boat trip and one of his boats caught a 32" 19lb brown on the fly. They are turning out tons of big fish right now with this higher water. You should check out some of the pics from their gallery on their website.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I'll check them out.

I don't really need a guide as much as I need someone to just drive the boat.

Pete