Low Water, at last

My fishing buddy, Jeff Trost, called me on Friday Night. “Are we going to go out for beignets at Angler’s Coffee Café tomorrow morning?” “No”, I said “I just read the generation forecast and they are going to have both rivers on the bottom for twenty four hours”. We had not been able to wade in a long time and were eager to take advantage of the great conditions so we hatched a plan to meet early the next morning to make the final decision as to where would fish.

Jeff arrived before six thirty. David McCray and Scott Berringer got there a few minutes later. I had a pot of coffee ready and was feverishly studying the various generation charts on my computer. This is the most reliable and informative source of river conditions available. The White and Norfork had been off since 10:00 PM the night before and there was a dizzying array of options. After some spirited conversation, we decided to fish in the morning at the Narrows and the afternoon at Rim Shoals with our wives, who were all sleeping in as we chatted.

The sun was just peeking through the clouds as we walked through the cane thicket to arrive at the river. The wind was howling and it was about forty degrees as we waded upstream to the island. I opted to walk to the top of the island. The others stayed at the bottom.

I found my favorite run and began fishing it with a Y2K. I was rewarded on the fourth cast with the heavy weight of a good fish. I worked the spot for over an hour hooking plenty of fish in the process. I decided to try something different. I stripped off the fly, lead, and strike indicator. I cranked in all of my line and switched spools on my reel to one that held a sink tip line. I strung the line through the guides and tied a three foot 4X tippet to it and knotted an olive woolly bugger to the end of the tippet.

I began casting down stream at a forty five degree angle and let the line swing in the current. I was stripping the line to impart a bit of movement in the fly. I concentrated on the deeper water and worked my way down to the guys. The amount of time you will spend with a particular strategy is directly proportional to the amount of confidence you have in it. I have caught thousands of fish over the years with this strategy and I was determined it would produce in this situation. However, when I stopped a bit over an hour later I had only landed three fish with it. Sure there was the big rainbow that I had hooked, but it had spit the hook on the third jump. I waded to the bank and walked down where the guys were fishing.

They had experienced varying degrees of success but all had caught fish. Scott had the hot hand (he finished the morning with 53). I concentrated on what he was doing, which was high sticking Y2Ks. I took a few minutes to switch spools back to my floating line. I carefully rigged a Y2K and noticed a really good run that had not received any pressure in a while. I caught a trout on the first cast and stood in the same spot for an hour and absolutely nailed them. The run finally played out and I suddenly realized that I was famished. We had skipped breakfast in our haste to arrive at the river. I gathered up the guys and we headed back to Cotter.

Scott and David had to run. Jeff and I collected our wives, Lori and Shelley, and headed for the Sands. The home made vegetable soup and Rueben sandwich was just the thing to gird me for an afternoon of fishing. We left the restaurant and gathered up our gear. We donned our waders and headed for Rim Shoals. David rejoined us there. The wind was still howling, but it was a bit warmer. We strung our rods and waded across to the island. I was still fishing the Y2K. I caught a few fish but the going was quite bit slower than the morning.

Lori waded well below the island and was doing very well swinging an olive woolly bugger in her favorite spot. I, on the other hand, was experimenting with a variety of flies. I had some limited success on small olive scuds and sowbugs. I finally pumped the stomach of one of the trout and noted that it contained small scuds and sowbugs.

I glanced at my watch and noted that it was about 4:30 PM. Sunset was to be at 4:52 PM and I wanted to wade across the treacherous top riffle before it got dark. As usual, Lori wanted to make one more cast. It was a long walk out and she eventually agreed to leave. We arrived at the truck as the sun was setting. I had fished from sun up to sun down and I could feel it. I had been fighting fifteen to twenty five mile an hour winds all day and they had sapped my strength. In the process, I had landed around forty fish. It was good to wade through my favorite spots on low water again. It seemed like it has been a long time since I have done that.