Fishing the White over Thanksgiving week.

[jonbo]

well, my trip to the White River is just around the corner. The wife and I have rented a cabin somewhere between Bull Shoals Dam and Mountain Home. I'm so excited I'm already finding it hard to go to sleep at night. I've tied up olive WB's, black WB's, red midges, some sort of mishapen muddler/bunny hybrid hopefully-they-look-like-sculpins things, some bwo emergers, and some scuds. I already have some eggs and some SJ worms. I think I'm about set.

There's good and bad about going this time of year, I think. The bad is that, although I'll be right by the dam, I can't fish it. It's off limits due to brown spawning season. The good is that flows are down in general, so the wading should be as good as it can get. Right this week the planned releases on the White are something like 21 hours a day at 35 whatever-the-units-are. As near as I can figure out that's somewhere around 3100 cfs. I believe that's "minimum flow" at this time. When I went about 3 years ago minimum flow was represented on the chart as 25 whatevers, so I guess it's a little higher than it was at that time.

I think I'll plan to spend part of my time on the Norfork by the dam, part of my time downstream at the handicapped access or whatever its called, and part of my time at Rim Shoals. RS is the only one of those spots I'm completely unfamiliar with. Going online I can figure out where the wade access begins, but I was hoping to pick the brain of one of y'all who's been there, like Hank or Jeff. What do you know about the shuttle service. Supposedly Rim Shoals Resort will shuttle fishermen to The Island" or something for a fee. Is that a good thing to take advantage of, or is just fishing Rim Shoals walk-in plenty of fishing. I'm imagining crowds won't be awful during that week, particularly if it gets pretty chilly by then. Thanks, guys!

[hankinsfly]

36.258302, -92.474217

Plug that GPS coord into yer smart phone. This is for Rim Shoals. Cross the railroad track, turn left at the office/tackle shop. Go past the cabins/old river boats. You'll see the area and the giant riffle downstream. Short walk down to the water. Some good fish in there, I promise! I would like to try the Euro methods here. I hate that you can't fish my honey hole at the dam, but the browns need to spawn undisturbed. I encourage you to check out the state park riffle, I'm pretty sure it's open year round. Too much water now at anything above minimum flow, but worth a look. Check out Wildcat shoals as well.

36.308364, -92.573946

Don't forget about the riffle downstream of Norfork dam, in front of the campsite. I've done very well here. Drift you a brown/copper zebra midge and something with a lil red in it under a bobber here, or swing a soft hackle. Then go down to the catch and release area and fish all the same stuff. Look for risers to midges.

[jonbo]

Thanks, Hank! Yer advice is makin me fidgit in me chair!

[danimal]

Good suggestions from Hank. Roundhouse Shoals about a half mile or so down from Cotter is always worth a look also. Not as scenic as some of the others mentioned, but it fishes pretty good and the near side (river left) can be fished up to around 4 generators running.

[hankinsfly]

Nov 6, 2017 21:57:28 GMT -6 danimal said:

Good suggestions from Hank. Roundhouse Shoals about a half mile or so down from Cotter is always worth a look also. Not as scenic as some of the others mentioned, but it fishes pretty good and the near side (river left) can be fished up to around 4 generators running.

Roundhouse- 36.266541, -92.530708

[flyfishermann1955]

Jonbo,

Follow Stephen's advice and go to Rim Shoals. Add some Pat's Rubber Leg stonefly nymphs to your fly box. Here is a re-cap from our visit back in March:

beaversbendflyshop.proboards.com/thread/883/white-river-arkansas-20-mar

Tight Lines- Ken

[jonbo]

Thanks, Ken. I'll bring me some!

[hankinsfly]

Jonbo- I have never utilized the shuttle service out to the islands at Rim. I calls and inquired about it once but didn't need it bc of low water- I believe Mr. Flippin answered and said they could arrange it. That was a couple years ago. I think it would be a cool service to use and would take away the worry you can naturally have about being out in the middle knowing that big water is coming later. But, at minimum flow, it's easy wading for the most part. Also, don't just fish the riffle downstream- throw some heavy midges up into the run ahead of the riffle. I hooked into several good browns here, one I never saw but knew it was a monster. I also caught my biggest ever cutt down in the riffle one August on a hopper. Lots of good days at this spot.

[jonbo]

I might throw one of the wooly's I just tied into that run. Thanks, man.

[bassman]

I was there a couple of weeks ago. Didn't do very well but then I never do. One thing of note was the only browns we either caught or LDR'ed we on eggs. The guide actually used a bead setup about 1/4" pink with a hook dangling an inch or so below the bead. The rainbows I did catch seemed to lean toward the purple silk zebras I'd tied with white wire and tungsten beadhead. Also got a couple stripping Wooly Bugger in purple but most came on the midges or eggs with a "bobber" even though I personally hate fishing with one i definitely caught a few more fish for us. The best fishing we had and all our browns came from the area called Buffalo Shoals (per guide).

Fished a couple of days by myself in boat and caught some 'bows but nothing exciting. Only really good 'bow I had on LDR'ed me on a great jump but that was on an UL spinning outfit I threw in between watching bobber float harmlessly. A couple of years ago when I couldn't get fish on a fly I'd throw a Rooster Tail and was assured of action. Not this year.

[jonbo]

From what I'm understanding sculpin imitations (olive 'buggers, etc.), midges, and eggs are likely to be the ticket. Sorry Stephen, I may have to "sin" and tie on an egg pattern at some point. I've got a bunch of micro midges, mostly KF Midges that I had tied up for my San Juan excursion last year. I'll probably give them a try, too.

[hankinsfly]

Hey Jon, ain't no sin! Size 18 root beer midge and an egg will catch you plenty of fish...

[hankinsfly]

Jon, you excited for your trip? When do you leave? Make sure to take a few pics, and have a good Thanksgiving!

[jonbo]

Fished Rim Shoals today. I'm lucky with my timing, it seems. Minimum flow kind of 24 hours. Had several hookups early with a wooly bugger, but it being fairly cold, I was a little clumsy and they all got off. One seemed to be a nice fish. I tried to nymph awhile, but it being kind of windy, all I managed to do was tangle, repeatedly. I finally switched to soft hackles. I caught several on BWO's and a green butt. They were really nicely colored up rainbows about 12 inches.

Tomorrow is wifey time. I will probably get back to fishing on Tuesday. Cheers, fellers!

[jonbo]

I fished Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday I went to Wildcat Shoals. From the public access point to the shoals it's about a quarter mile walk. It's easily done at minimum flow, but I can see how when the water rises there's no way to make it back to the parking lot without illegally walking through people's yards. That said, at minimum flow it's a humongous wade-fishing area on the scale of Rim Shoals, though probably not quite as long. It was a good day of fishing. I started with an indicator. I ended up finding success using an egg pattern as an attractor while catching the fish on a red midge. Lots of red. Walking back to the car to take a break and eat lunch I noticed that in the big long smooth flat area before the shoals guys were wading out pretty far. It looked like some were spin-fishing while others were maybe fishing streamers. So I went back out with my 6 weight and fished the big weird "Zuddler" I'd tied. Surprisingly, to me, it was good for several hookups! Back in the actual Shoals (riffles and runs), I tried swinging Green Butts (basically a Partridge & Green) and BWO emergers. It was the GB that proved effective. I caught several with it and finally, at the very end, a nice 15-16 inch rainbow. Till then it had all been smaller recent stocker types.

So, Wednesday I went out brimming with confidence. "Not so fast, boastful little man", said the fishing gods. Wednesday there was a significant amount of generation scheduled, 7AM to 11. I figured that with rising water usually reaching Rim Shoals in about 6 hours, I could fish till 11:30, at least, no problem. I tried the area above the shoals themselves, waded out to about the bottom of my vest and fished a WB for awhile. Nothing. I went down along the trail to the shoals themselves. There I saw that the water was a bit higher than it had been on Sunday. I couldn't see several of the riffles I had fished the other day. I briefly tried going in at one spot. About 60 feet from the bank I found myself waist deep with the water flowing pretty hard against me. "You know, is this worth possibly drowning for"? I was the ONLY one out in that lonely stretch. "Uh, uh!" So I beat it. I ended up taking the advice of the nice proprietor of RS Resort, going back to the house for an early lunch, and up to the State Park after the water fell out.

There, in the one shoal, sumpin'-or-other Spring, below the riffle where I usually try to fish was occupied by several folks so I fished the top end. I ended up in the flat area about the riffles. There were bugs coming off pretty strongly, though few risers. "Surely they'll hit an emerger". Not really. I had 3 takes in about two hours stubbornly trying to get the fish to accept one or another emergers pattern. Finally, about 2:30, in desperation I ran down to Wildcat. Nothing on about 6 different nymph patterns. As the sun fell behind the mountain I tied on a Red-ass and swung it downstream. Bam! A 12" rainbow. "Okay, I'm satisfied." I rolled up and headed back to the cabin to cook steaks.

Yep, it's all up to the fish gods. The steaks were great. Feeling mighty blessed.

I don't know if it's just me and I'm a scaredy-cat, but at anything but nearly complete minimum flow (7 MW on your SW Power web site will site, y'all), this White River is just too intimidating to wade into.

[turfdawg]

A day fishing with grilled steaks for supper sounds like a great time.

Have fun and happy thanksgiving

[jonbo]

Why thanks, Bill. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, too. We ate at Gaston's, brunch-time, but it was a traditional spread. It was good. In the afternoon I got to hit the river one more time. Caught several on caddis emergers and a Red-ass. Today we tour around. Tomorrow we travel. It's been a great trip!