12/18 Houseman

[Devan S.]

Launched at 930 and headed upstream intent on starting my adventure around the hole at the 62 bridge. Got to the shoal just upstream from houseman and noticed the water was shallower than I remember and I could easily see bottom water was about 4 ft. deep. Concerning since they have been running 2500cfs non-stop for 3-4 days.

Got there and on my 2nd cast with a minnow tipped jig I caught a nice 19" walleye. Shortly after than something changed. Water that was fairly clear started to have a bit of trash.....drifted on back down to houseman without a bite. Took off from there and went working my way down to cow patty flats and the next bend in the river. Nothing....nada...zilch. 

Water was 49-50 degrees. Pulled the boat out and headed down to parker bottoms. I wanted to see how the flow looked that they had been running lately to see if I could find some marginal wading this weekend. Got there and it looked like quite a bit of water. Pulled up the corp chart and it looked like between 8-10am they cut flows from 2500cfs to nothing and then bumped it up to 3800 cfs for the rest of the day. 

Only thing I can think is the on/off/on really screwed them up. Also several spots I wanted to fish I struggled with boat control. The area around cow patty flats had the wind blowing hard the exact opposite way of the current and it made it incredible difficult to stay in one spot and get good drifts with minnows or work a jerker. 

Spent most of the day drifting either 1/16 or 1/8 oz jig with minnow(out of the wind). Threw a jerkbait below houseman. Even gave the Arig a workout for a bit on the steeper chunk rock stuff where the wind gave me trouble.

[rps]

Some days that stretch of the river is just contrary. You found one. BTW any day with a 19" walleye is not a bad day.

[Quillback]

Haven't fished there in a long time, and didn't fish it a lot back then, but it seems like when they ran water and it had some color with some trash in it,  and was cold, that the fishing would shut down.   

[Devan S.]

I am happy with the one walleye. Just when it happens so fast your always hopeful for a better day.

BTW @rps roughly how far downstream can one stumble into a decent chance at brown trout? I'm looking for big browns and walleye so don't want to keep pushing downstream much past houseman if I'd be better off constantly going upstream. I haven't run into many trout down from houseman but I'm not really fishing for them. Just throwing jerkbaits and trying to cover both fish types.

[rps]

1 hour ago, Devan S. said:

I am happy with the one walleye. Just when it happens so fast your always hopeful for a better day.

BTW @rps roughly how far downstream can one stumble into a decent chance at brown trout? I'm looking for big browns and walleye so don't want to keep pushing downstream much past houseman if I'd be better off constantly going upstream. I haven't run into many trout down from houseman but I'm not really fishing for them. Just throwing jerkbaits and trying to cover both fish types.

I never caught a brown below Houseman, however the largest brown I caught on Tablerock, about 6 pounds, came from the sunken timber on the left side of the river just after you make the turn toward the 62 bridge. I was throwing a jerk bait looking for walleye.

[Quillback]

Here's a link to an old thread, wish I had a link to the story.  That was 10 years ago, so I'm sure that fish is dead by now, but shows you what could lurk in there.  I'm pretty sure those shocking surveys were done above Houseman.

25 Lb. Brown Shocked Up By Agfc - Beaver Tailwater/Upper White River - OzarkAnglers.Com Forum

[Devan S.]

Yeah I'm sure there's some good ones left there just need to find them. Don't want to spend a ton of time running below houseman if it doesn't do me any good. 

Need to explore more above spider creek. I figure the shocking has to take place between Bertrand boat ramp and the ramp at the dam most likely. Saw some facebook images for some big ones that were shocked up this year so I have hope.

[rps]

That section of refrigerator size rock just above the 63 bridge deserves attention.