Four Chilly Days On The Norfork

[John Berry]

I guided two groups of anglers this week for a total of five days. It was cold every day and rained quite a bit. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, my clients were from Minnesota and they thought the weather was quite mild. On each day, we fished on the White in the morning and then went to the Norfork each afternoon after the water dropped out. Every day we arrived at the handicap access to discover that we were the only ones there. We fished the Catch and Release section and did well. One of my clients was seventy five years ond. He was fishing size twenty six dry flies that he had tied and was tagging plenty of fish. The big fish was a nineteen inch rainbow. We caught fish on a variety of flies: zebra midges, partridge and orange soft hackles, pheasant tails, San Juan worms and Y2Ks. On Saturday, I took some clients from Kansas. We had done very well the day before on the White. We went to the handicap access and found the water muddy. We caught three fish and decided to go to the dam to find some clear water. We fished sow bugs and partridge and orange soft hackles and absolutely slayed them. One of my guys landed four brookies. All in all the best fishing that I have seen on the Norfork in a while. The poopy weather definately thinned the herd but did not affect the fishing.

[Ham]

I sneaked in a few minutes of trout fishing on the Norfork near the dam after I took my son to Dry Run creek Sunday. I caught one decent Brown and a handful on SMALL brookies. I wonder if there was a recent stocking?