Jack Hise, Tom Roberts (doublewide on FAOL), and myself took a trip to the White River in Arkansas. We left last Sunday, Oct. 4th, and returned today, Thursday, Oct.8th. It takes about 8 1/2 hours of driving to get there, but, it was worth it! This is really my first fly fishing trip away from my home waters here in Tennessee. Since I retired this past May 31st, I had wanted to fish other water now that I would have the time and Tom had fished the White River this past December and wanted to make another trip and he wanted me to see the White River and fish it. We had reservations at Rim Shoals on the White River and had a beautiful cabin overlooking the river. Unfortunately, they were running 3 to 4 generators 24 hours per day and the river was not wadeable. The river was 5 foot above normal flow the entire time we were there and very swift. You could fish it if you had a boat, but, from the bank, it was just not safe to try and wade it. Tom was very disappointed because it was at normal flow and very wadeable when he was there in December and he caught a lot of 17" trout. He really wanted me to have the same experience. We were able to fish all day on Monday and Wednesday but only in the afternoon on Tuesday because it rained most of the day on Tuesday. We used the “rain time” to visit the Blue Ribbon Fly Shop plus another fly shop in the Mountain Home area and it was fun. I decided that the high water was not going to stop me from fishing and did some exploring. The Rim Shoals area has a 1 mile trail that you can walk and it has some areas where you can access the river to fish. Due to the high water, I was only able to wade in about 8 to 10 feet from the bank before it was just too deep and swift to venture any further. I was able to cast towards the fast water and allow the fly to swing over to the edges where it met the slower water and did catch trout. My total for the 2 1/2 days of fishing was 22 trout with 2 being browns. I did not catch any of the really big trout which are there, but, I was there to catch fish and size was not an issue. My 22 trout ranged from 11" to 14". I could not get over how beautiful the trout were! The colors were very bright and the fish were very fat and healthy. I did see some trout around the Rim Shoals boat dock and ramp that were from 18" to 24"! I hope to get back there again and fish when the river is at a normal stage and wadeable. I think Tom would loved to have rented one of the boats from Rim Shoals, but, I was on a budget this trip. On our next trip Tom and I have decided to take his boat with us. All my research on this area stated that you needed to fish Zebra midges and scuds in sizes 16 through 20 and I had tied up many to use, but, the river flow would not allow much of this type of fishing. I had my fly tying kit with me and all my fish came on my Reverse Spider pattern in size 10 and John Scott’s micro pine squirrel streamer in size 8. Thanks, John, for a great streamer pattern. I did tie mine up with lead wraps under the body to help get them down in the deep swift flowing water and I tied some in olive, brown and gray and they all produced.
Overall, I had a great time and now I know that I can catch fish in other water besides my home waters!
The following posts will be some of the pictures I took of the river to show the very high swift conditons, some of Jack and Tom and some of the trout caught. To this old country boy, the White River looked more like the Mississippi River! I was not expecting a river of this size, but, it fishes just like a smaller river, only a lot more of it!
