Sunday Afternoon on the Norfork

It was a busy year (my busiest ever). The holidays and some very brutal weather have conspired against me. I have been able to catch a day on the White but I had not been able to fish on the Norfork for quite a while. Yesterday I saw my chance. The temperature was in the fifties, there was a light wind from the west and the sun was shining. The river was on the absolute bottom. I knew that all of the out of towners would be leaving the river early in the afternoon.

After lunch, I gathered up my wife, Lori, and my yellow lab, Ellie. We drove over to the Norfork. When I arrived at the Ackerman Access, I noted that the parking lot was full. I noticed there were several anglers wading back to the access to head home. We finally got a spot to park the car. We hopped out and carefully donned our waders, strung our rods and let Ellie out of the car.

We waded far upstream and found some great water to fish. Lori started fishing woolly buggers and had some quick success. I located myself a bit upstream from Lori and started with a worm brown San Juan worm. It took several casts before I landed a trout. The going was slow. I had been watching another angler fishing a favorite spot and saw him walk away. I cranked up my rod and headed up stream. Ellie had seen me put some dog biscuits in my jacket when we were packing up for the trip at home. She followed me with the idea of collecting those treats.

This spot was greatly changed since the flood. It was scoured out and the footing is tough. It still holds some really nice fish. I decided to spend some time there. In my haste to begin fishing, I had left my polarized sun glasses in the car. I was wearing my beloved cowboy hat, which provides a lot of shade from the sun, but doesn’t help much with glare on the water. I could only follow my strike indicator for a few feet before I lost it in the glare. I carefully waded up stream and then across the run. Now I had the sun on my back and could easily watch my strike indicator.

My first fish was a fat sixteen inch rainbow. I released it and continued fishing. It was one of those days when the trout could not decide what they wanted. I caught six more fish on six different flies. I took fish on red San Juan worms, sowbugs, olive scuds, black zebra midges, Y2Ks, and copper johns. I tried a few other flies but they did not produce the desired results.

I decided to walk back to where Lori was fishing. She had taken several trout on the woolly bugger and was now fishing a Dan’s turkey tail emerger. She caught a couple while I was talking to her. I studied the surface of the river for a while and saw a small caddis hatch coming off. I didn’t have an elk hair caddis that small. I searched my fly box and came up with a small partridge and orange soft hackle. I tied on a fresh 5X tippet and the fly. I moved up stream and started working my way down. I picked up four or five fish. I had caught enough trout.

I cranked up my line and waded over to the bank. I found a nice clump of grass at the water’s edge and sat down. Ellie came over and sat beside me. I fed her a couple of dog biscuits. We just sat there and watched Lori fish. Ellie hasn’t been out with us much this year because of the high water earlier in the year.

She lost the vision in her right eye. She developed glaucoma but luckily it has now been stabilized. I have the same thing. In fact, we take the same prescriptions. Her vision has slowed her down a bit and she doesn’t terrorize the trout as much as she used to. She still lives for a day on the water and is always ready to go.

As we sat there, I thought what a perfect day it was and how lucky I was to be there. Lori fished for another hour and caught plenty of fish. I was in no hurry to leave and she was content to nail a few more trout. As the sun set, we walked out hand in hand with Ellie leading the way.