WHITE RIVER (BSD)

Bug Munchin' Bonanza!!!

It's bug time on the White River System, and the dry fly anglers, and super solid fish are coming out of the wood works to capitalize on one of the bigger hatches I've ever seen.

Hatches are starting at about 10:00 am and running until 5:00 pm with another resurgence of bugs in the last hour of light.

It can be tough for the weekend warrior to really dial into as about four different subspecies of the bug are coming off during different times of the day.
Bugs vary from: tan, insect green, olive, to almost black and will also vary in size from 14's to 20's. Wing structure and color on the bugs are almost paramount in importance. With that being said, its almost more important to find the timing and rythm of the hatch and things to come to stay one step ahead of what an angler is seeing on the water.
Fish are absoulutely smoking theses bugs. Fish are litereally spitting water on the takes, and shark wakes are almost a common occurence in the shallow flats while fish are chasing down bugs in really shallow water.
Pupae droppers, and soft hackles will be very productive and more forgiving as droppers, but what's the point when they are cramming in adults as fast as you can put the correct representation and presentation on the water.

Hatch has hit peak in some stretches of the river, but haven't travelled the entire length giving anglers probably 2 more weeks of solid caddis crushing action.

I've seens sulphurs already popping in masses in the warm water fisheries pushing us into the three week away window for our trout fisheries barring in huge cold fronts.

We've also seen some good spring rains, pushing lake levels into a place for great hatch work and good flows through the late spring and early summer. These flows will be perfect for our 1 in 15 years foam and rubber legs hatch that will be present this summer...........CICADAS!!!!!

FORREST SMITH

WWW.TROUTANDTIMBER.COM

(479)684-9189

Arkansas winter duck season

Again,

I'm catching up with what went on since early in fall of 2010.

Duck season was great. Some drought conditions created for an interesting season. It was hard to find the birds, but once they were found they tended to be higly concentrated making for many a great hunt.

Gator (my black lab) and I, hunted all over the state: Arkansas River Valley, Augusta AR, Pocahontas AR, and some places that will not (never) be named.

Although the duck swatting was great last season in Montana, it felt good to get back in the swing of things in a state that is so rich in duck hunting tradition. It also didn't hurt that not one day afield was spent in subzero weather conditions.

I will say this before I start to blab too much about some honey holes. I have never seen so many mallards in the Western half of the state as I did this year. Maybe due to influx of OK birds.....but Oklahoma didn't have as many Mallards as the Arkansas side of the border boasted for some reason.

since we left off Fall BSD, duck hunting, and February BSD

I apologize for the very infrequent reports as of late. The crazy push of guide work in October/November followed by almost every morning spent in the duck blind affords me not much free time to report on my latest exploits.

October/ November below Bull Shoals Dam and the Norfork.

Fishing was absolutely nuts, and the guide work unrelenting. Lots of big fish came to the net during that time. My log book says that the hopper infestation pushed terrestrial fishing for me until October 27th.

Streamer fishing was fantastic. Lots of Nice Fish crashing some really big flies. When I say big, streamers I typically throw make a circus peanut look like a size 24 midge. Here's a couple pics for your enjoyment.

Thanks to all my fishermen who made this one of the best Octobers to date. The great thing about fall fishing is not really the fishing itself or the Ozark fall foliage, but the comradery with anglers that I have guided for several years. Some of those have been fishing with me for 10 years. Top photo is courtesy of Matt Jones at www.theflyphoto.com. The bottom several pictures are courtesy of my friends/clients Ed and Lindy Ruggiero. I was lucky to meet and fish with them during my three year guiding stint in Southern Chile, and have enjoyed their company ever since. You can find more of their pictures of their trip with unbiased commentary of their trip here to Arkansas and other places abroad at www.ruggieroweb.com.

On to Winter Ducks in Arkansas ditches.....

Crooked Creek

Things Got Western on Crooked Creek

Fished on 8/19 with Brad Wiegmann and Chris. Flows for the Crooked were at 122 cfs. Water temps were high 70's to the low 80's by the afternoon.

I hope no one fished the same stretch that we fished on Crooked Creek the next day. We absolutely turned the creek upside down. Fishing was phenomenal.

Brad being a "gear guide" for Bass in NWA, he brought his spinning tackle and an assortment soft plastics that I had never seen. They worked like crazy. We also pitched around my old stand-by rigs and they worked equally as well. I think the "one dollar baby", which is my sneaky little rig may have worked the best, but I will say that smallies love them some YUM.

As I was doing the trip to help Brad with a write up, I actually got to do a little bit of fishing as well. I prefer the more low caliber methods of fly fishing so I did quite a bit of that. Fishing was pretty good on it. Fly selections varied from Forrest's finesse worm, clousers, and various patterns and colors of crawbug patterns. They all worked pretty well. But by the end of the day I had struck gold with my old go to fly, Forrest's BB crawler. Had I fished that thing all day, I may have given Yum a run for its money.

The class size of fish has been awesome this year in the creek. It seems like they're running bigger on the creek than on the Buffalo. We caught a lot of fish in the 13-15" range, several in the 16"-17" range with one going 18". We had several more fish on that would have gone 18" but the explosive jumps ended up shaking quite a few hooks. We had one off close to the boat that was well in the mid 3lb. class. My heart sunk for a brief second, but thirty seconds later, another rod was bent with another 14" fish that helped lighten the mood.

I had a great time fishing with both Chris and Brad. They both are great fishermen. It is a rare thing for a guide to go out and be able to pick at someone's brain a bit, but i learned a few things from Brad. I think he may have learned a little about some "creek stompin" and the fly aspect of smallie fishing as well. I would highly reccomend Brad to anyone looking for a Bass guide on the lakes of Northwest Arkansas. Check out his site at www.bradwiegmann.com.

Forrest Smith

Trout and Timber Outfitters

www.troutandtimber.com

(479)684-9189

Troutandtimber@gmail.com

White River (Below Bull Shoals Dam)

White River streamer evening

Fished on 5/17 with Evan and John. The flows were at a plus or minus 20,000 cfs. We fished from the dam to Gastons on a half day evening trip.

Started out nymph fishing and did pretty well considering they turned on all 8 units from no generation in an hours time. John was very new to nymphing techniques and didn't particularly enjoy deep nymphing so we started fishing streamers.

Off the bat we caught a 19-20" brown (pictured above). We landed a couple "nice" fish but nothing monstrous. We got into a few pockets where I had been seeing some really large wolf packs of browns during low water. It seemed like every other cast these fish were chasing it out or taking a swipe at us. A few monsters (mid to high 20 inch range) ate the fly right off the gunnel, but it is hard to "smoke the barrel on a fish when an angler is dancing it on a slack line to entice the bite.

The fish finally got settled into a rhythm with the flows, but then the dam dropped the water two feet in the matter of minutes pushing the bite off once again.

We could have got them pushing the bobber grind (nymphing) with the typical worms, midges, sowbugs, etc. etc. but my hands were proverbially tied in that aspect.

Sometimes as anglers and guides alike, we strive for the style points, but on a half day with some odd ball conditions, you've just got to get down and dirty to get the job done. If you don't...you'll only put 9 fish in the boat in the matter of 4 hours.

Not my peak performance to say the least. Long drive home.

White River (below Bull Shoals Dam)

Hoppers, Hoppers, Hoppers.... and other foam leggy things.

Gary and a 22" brown!!

Sorry for the long delay in fishing reports. It's been late nights on the vise, and early mornings on the river. I've been fishing the White anywhere between the dam and Shipp's Ferry the last several weeks. The flows have been all over the place. The stereo typical day (if such exists) has been no generation 50 cfs or low flows in the 1,000-3,000 cfs range in the mornings to a bit heavier flows after lunch. Some days they haven't turned it on till late afternoon. Some days it starts out at 2,000 cfs and never bumps all day. The flows are also dependent on the stretch of river an angler fishes. The flow reports I am giving are the starting times of generation

another run of the mill brown by Gary

Fishing has been absolutely stupid. Some days I actually feel evil for the defamation of a the fish population's intellegence.

The hopper/terrestrial fishing has been absolutely crazy. They're eating them in every mile of river that holds a trout right now. The bite typically gets better as the land based food load increases further down river.

Gary and myself with another 20" fish

During lower flows, I have been fishing some smaller hoppers with another dry for a dropper. Midges (thread and a bead) have done well as droppers on the hoppers. Higher flows, present the opportunity to throw some bigger foam patterns. dropping smaller hoppers or a bigger midge have also produced quite a few fish. During extremely high flows, its go big on the terrestrials and put it in the spots or you've got to nymph worms. Smaller hoppers and other terrestrials and dries will still work in the recirc holes.

John Bass's 21" bow....John's 7 feet tall and has catcher's mits for hands that will swallow even substantially large fish...therefore I had to pose for the grip and grin.

The river is in as good of shape as I've seen it in probably 15 years. There are a lot of big fish to be caught. There have always been good numbers of big browns, but the size class of rainbows the river is holding right now is simply amazing.

another run of the mill brown by Gary

All these pictures have come in only the last three days of fishing. I misplaced my camera charger and haven't been able to take any pictures in several weeks. The bigger fish are absolutely gobbling right now.

On Monday 8/9 I fished Gary and his wife Joyce. Gary boated two nice browns that day, one going 20" and the other pushing a shade over 22". While trying to land his 22" fish, Gary's wife Joyce hooked into a leviathon fish. Two big browns on a double out of a boat can be a great recipe for absolute chaos, and Joyce's fish ended up eluding the net. It was a bitter sweet ending as Gary got his fish in, and Joyce not landing her fish (that easily went into the high 20's). Two bigguns on a double present a problem...but I guess its a good problem to have.

Bill and a decent brown

Fishing sucks....I hate my life..........

Forrest Smith

Trout and Timber Outfitters

www.troutandtimber.com

troutandtimber@gmail.com

(479)684-9189

White River (below Bull Shoals Dam)

I had the opportunity of fishing a few days ago with a great friend of mine, John Bass. John is a fellow Arkie native that resides between Northwest Arkansas and Bull Shoals. He's a true purveyor of all things fish, and a story teller extraordinare. He also brought his long time friend Dave Wendell along for the ride. The banter throughout the day consisted of: fish, ducks, why the Razorbacks are ridiculously good at everything, how Longhorn fans are actually closet Razorback fans, and unrelenting "ribbing" of everyone in the boat. Great fun was had by all.

Fishing was great. Nymphing predominated the day, but great dry fly opportunites presented themself in the afternoon. Fish ate the more techy foam bug stuff and the occassional hopper. Nymphing consisted of little baetis stuff, midges, and micro dirt snakes (san juan worms).

Flows were pretty consistent in the 4,000 cfs range until the big bump in the afternoon.

Note: There is now a new food source in the river. Its, big, its ugly, it floats, and it draws some pretty big fish to the surface from out of the wood works. It will probably go for two more weeks....and I happen to have a few openings during this time.

Forrest Smith

Trout and Timber Outfitters

www.troutandtimber.com

(479)684-9189

troutandtimber@gmail.com