White River, AR

Got back from my trip to the white river in Arkansas.  I never would have thought of Arkansas being a good place for a trout fishery.  The white river is pretty amazing. 

Unfortunately,  the water was super high and really fast the entire time I was there.  I guess they are anticipating some significant rainfall in the next week or two so they kept things flowing pretty hard from the dam.  They have power generators at the dam at Bull Shoals, I am not sure how many in total they have, but they ran 8 of them the entire time I was there, which as I understand it, is a lot.

I learned quite a bit on this trip.  Heading out there, I had visions of catching many trout on the fly from the hobie.  I bought some streamers, and some mouse patterns for the night time.  What I didnt do, was buy a fly rod specifically for this trip.  I figured, although my 5wt was probably underpowered, I would just figure things out and it would be ok.  I got part of that equation right.  Everything felt wrong trying to toss the big streamers on the 5wt.  I could never get the rod to load up right, and it felt like it was always trying to catch up.  I struggled along trying to make that work for a while, meanwhile everyone that I was with was using conventional rods and reels and were already in the fish.

After a while, I gave up and switched to a conventional setup.  Then I started catching fish.

Due to the volume of water, we only drifted in Kayaks one day.  I had never been in a kayak in those kinds of conditions.  The river is wide and deep, so I never felt intimidated, but it could get you moving!  We had a group of guys.  Several were in a large drift raft, and a few of us were in kayaks.  The kayaks moved WAY faster than the drift raft.  Since I did not know where the take out was,  I needed to stay within view of the raft, or risk floating down the white for the next several days. 

One thing I did not expect was the the kayak wanted to turn circles as it drifted down the river.  The rudder would slow that a bit,  but I had to use the paddle or pedals more than I thought I would, just to keep the kayak pointed in the direction that I wanted.

Sadly, on the day that we drifted the yaks, I didnt even get so much as a bite.  At first I was super bummed, and thought it was something I was doing or not doing.  Then I checked in with others and no one was catching that day.  The weather had shifted from a high of 40 the previous day, to the 60s that day.  So, I dont know if that had something to do with it,  but I figure it was maybe a factor.

I also learned that I suck at using a gopro. I had one,  figured I would have a bunch of killer footage, but I dont.  I have lots of footage of the ground.  Some of my beer.  and some out of place footage of the river itself.  I think I only managed about one fish to get on there.

The rest of the trip we rented little skiffs, or Jon boats with motors.  This made it much easier to get around, and hold up at holes that were producing fish.

The white river really is a stunning landscape.  I saw many awesome critters,  otters, beavers, all sorts of birds.  I even saw a bald eagle swoop down and snag a fish.  That was freakin awesome.  Wish I had gotten that on the gopro!

For me, I felt like I caught a lot of fish.  The locals were all complaining that it was slow the whole time I was there.  They talked of 50 to 100 fish days.  I have never had that kind of day. 

The first day I got there, I caught 4 fish that afternoon/evening.  The next day, 4 again. The day after, 0, but I had the biggest brown trout I have ever seen on my line,  it broke off at my feet.  That hurt.  I would have loved to have gotten a picture of that one.  Day after that, I caught 11, and then the morning I left I caught 4 more. 

Plenty of good food, good drink and good company.  Was an epic trip.

Here are a few of the fish I caught. 

Looks like a great time dude!!!

Congrats on exploring a new place and getting some beautiful fish!!

Thanks for sharing!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Sounds like fun (except for losing the big one). Thanks for the writeup and pictures.

Always fun fishing somewhere new. Met some people from Arkansas great people. Looks like you had an awesome time back there.

Great write up. Thanks for the fish porn 

Thanks for the report and pictures Scruzfish.

THAT SMILE SAYS IT ALL!!

Thanks for Sharing

Very cool trip! I have some family in Arkansas, might have to do a fishing trip next time I’m out there

Thank you for sharing. Northern Arkansas and southern Missouri have some TOP NOTCH trout fishing and the biggest fish are on the North Fork and the White.


I'm super stoked to hear how much you enjoyed the area, I spend a lot of time there as a kiddo


Jim

last year we traveled across the states and we stopped on the White for a couple days. It is quite an amazing fishery. Very fertile. Tons of fish per mile there. When we firsts got there they were running one generator. then mid morning cranked up several more. Watched the river go from a modest stream to a huge river in a few minutes! If you were on the other side wading you wold be screwed if you didn't get back over!. They said they blow a horn before opening it up, but this time they didn't, so it just started growing before your eyes. Depending on the flow the trout relocate according to the flows. I caught several nice ones on flies and then I tried the marabou jigs they use and got some on those too. Broke off a toad too. Wish we had a little more time to explore it, but had to keep moving.