White River (Bull Shoals Dam)

6/17/10

Fished Bull Shoals Dam to Wildcat with Rob and Bob Lambert. Flows were really consistent in the 13,000-14,000 range. Worked hard for fish in the morning, picking most of them up on tungsten midges. After lunch we got into some pretty hot terrestrial action. Flying ants have been in the system for a couple weeks, and fish are really keying in on them. At about two o'clock the sulphurs really got going. fish were concentrated in the "bug funnels" and feeding in massive pods.

Rob and Bob did an excellent job jamming the flies in the magic eat zones. We started running some large terrestrials as a lead with the sulphur stuff behind, and had some great action: multiple doubles, sight fishing, explosive takes, a few nice browns, and sight fishing to some really nice bows. Its was a tough job, but the Bob and Rob were up to the task. Now onto the caddis finale.

Now I must first admit, I was a little slow on my hatch progressions during the day, but I did manage to stay on top of it. The last piece of the progression puzzle came in the caddis game. It was almost time to hit the boat ramp, but fish were still up. The sulphurs started to taper off, the big bug bite slowed, the caddis began to emerge in the flat light of the late afternoon. Bob was spent. Man down, I dropped an 18 lopro caddis off the back of the big bug on Rob's rod. Worked instantly. Boated several fish in a short period. As we were working down, we found a small side riffle, with an inside eddy foam pocket against a rock wall. Fish were up on rhythm ....something out of a text book. Rob jammed the fly on the nervous water edge of the foam, missed a fish. Put it back in the same slot and a different fish comes up for a nice sip, and Rob stuck it.

As Rob was fighting the fish, Bob and I were giving him a hard time about show boating his dink of a trout. Fish finally came to the side of the boat, where I slid the net under the fish. Turns out Rob wasn't show boating, and that dink of a trout was a legitimate 20" brown.......on a dry fly.

QUICK NOTE: Many a time have I told people that it doesn't matter what the flows are on the White, you can find fish looking up. River was at 14,000 cfs! We caught fish all afternoon on dries...big ones and small ones. Just find the right water to play with. So when anglers read reports that say "if the water is low, we should have great caddis action", I would advise them to ignore the "if the water is low" part.