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Home > Trip Reports > The White River - September 2006
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Here is a photo of me with a nice rainbow trout.
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Steve and I at Wildcat Shoals.
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Scott with a nice brown trout.
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The White River - September 2006
September 2006
Lakeview , AR
posted by Buster
As a fly fisherman in general and as a fly fisherman that lives in the Tennessee, there are many trips and rivers that fly fisherman dream of fishing one day. There is the Tellico River in East Tennessee, the Cumberland River in South Central Kentucky, and the numerous mountain streams of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Just for your information, there are approximately 2,115 miles of trout streams within the national park boundaries.
I personally have fished the rivers and some of streams mentioned above, but the one place that I have dreamed of most of all, but had never fished was the ever famous White River in Northern Arkansas. Yes, I said Arkansas. Here is another little know fact. The world’s largest brown trout was caught in the Little Red River, which is about three hours south of the White River. The brown trout was 40 pounds and 4 ounces…that’s huge!
I am fortunate that there are a couple of fly fishing clubs in Nashville. There is Trout Unlimited (TU), Cumberland Chapter, www.cumberlandtu.org and Middle Tennessee Fly Fishers (MTFF), www.mtff.org. I am an active member of MTFF; I am a Member of the Board, co-chair of the Education Coordinator, and I try to attend every meeting and Monthly Outing. The club has a monthly outings and travels to great fly fishing waters across Tennessee and the Southeast. The September Outing this year was the White River. I have wanted to fish these waters for years and this year was going to be my year.
When we travel as a club, we try to live it up. We take car camping to the next level; gas stoves and grills, big tents, pop-up shelters over picnic tables, air beds, hot showers, big fires, and numerous ice cold beverages. Of course, some of the place we go to don’t have any amenities and that is where you can find the die-hards. I am a die-hard. Lucky for me, when the club goes to the White River, we stay at Bull Shoals State Park. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard that Bull Shoals SP has been Arkansas’s number one state park for the last eight years, and yes, they do have hot showers and the staff cleans them about three to four times a day.
I left for the White River on Wednesday night after work. Instead of driving the eight hour one way trip to the White River, I decided to drive down to Memphis, spend the night, add a side trip to the Little Red River, and then make my way north to the White River. I woke up early Thursday morning, and hit the road for the Little Red River in Heber Springs, AR. Once I arrived in Heber Springs, I found the local fly shop, Ozark Angler and purchased a new hat and a few recommended flies. The Little Red is a nice river but is probably over shadowed by the more famous White River. I managed to fish the Little Red for several hours and I caught several fish. But the thought of bigger waters and bigger fish, stayed with me while on the river. Plus, I still had to drive another three hours to get the White and there are always the unscheduled stops: Sonic, gas stations, and other fly shops.
When I arrived at Bull Shoals SP, I immediately set up camp which included pitching the tent, blowing up the air mattress, a failed attempt to set up the pop-up over the picnic table, and organizing the numerous containers of food, drinks, and cooking supplies. Then I was off to find if any other club members have set-up camp yet and to explore the White. I forgot to mention that Bull Shoals SP sits on the banks of the White. I managed to find a couple of others, Ray and Novella, and that night we talked about the fishing and what the plan was going to be for the rest of the weekend.
Later that night, I managed to get some reception on my cell phone that night and got a hold of my fishing buddy, Scott, who was on his way and was splitting the cost of the campsite with me. Before losing reception on the cell phone, I managed to get the following information. “I…be…about one…two o’clock…morning.” And “It’s …raining…crazy.” Soon after the dropped call, I decided to go to bed and rest up for the following day. When we travel like this, we fish hard; wake up early, fish all day, and stay up late by the campfire. This trip would be no exception.
Scott showed up sometime during the night, but I wouldn’t have noticed. I was resting my eyes and exercising my lungs. I have been told I sound something like a bear; I think there might even be a video out there from a Colorado Trip a few years ago. I woke up around 7:00 in the morning, did some things around the camp site, and waited for Scott to get up. Since Scott came in late and didn’t want to fool with a tent, Scott used his truck with a camper on it as his shelter for the entire trip. I should have done the same; you’ll understand a little bit later in the trip report.
That morning, Scott decided to forego sleep and get up early to go fishing. If you knew Scott like I did, you would know that Scott does not get up early for fishing. When I call him up and ask if he wants to go fishing, he knows I mean getting on the river between six or seven in the morning. I know when I ask him to go fishing he wants to get on the river between ten or eleven in the morning. There is definitely a different view on “early”. I talked with Ray and Novella and they decided to go to the dam that morning and test their luck in the catch and release section.
Just to give you a little bit of information about the White River; the section of river just below the dam to Bull Shoals SP is catch and release only, artificially lure only, your hook must be barbless. If you have never fished a barbless hook before, don’t start, it definitely increases the difficulty. The rest of the river is fair game; bait, multiple flies, and you can leave the barbs on the hook. The temptation of the “catch and release” section of the river is the chance to catch a trophy trout, not once, but multiple times. A trophy trout is usually a fish over 20 inches in length. Plus, the section just below the dam holds brook and cutthroat trout as well as rainbows and browns.
Scott and I decided to head up to the dam, check in with Ray and Novella, and wet a line. Ray had not caught a fish, but Novella had managed to wrestle in a few rainbows. I moved on down river a bit after talking to Ray and Scott crossed the river and fished a shoal. After Ray worked a run for about half an hour, I crossed the river and fished the run he just left. I managed to catch and land a nice 13”/14” rainbow on an olive midge larva, but it got away before I could snap a decent photo. Sometime after landing that fish, the horn from the dam sounded. The dam at Bull Shoals generates electricity, so when you’re in the water about three to four hundred yards down stream and horn sounds, that means get out and get out now.
After Scott and I got out the water, we decided to go on down stream and fish another area. But before moving to a new section of river, we headed back to camp to get a little bit of lunch. While munching down on peanut butter sandwiches and chips, Steve, Laura, and Will pulled up to their campsite, which is across the gravel path from our camp site. Steve is fly fishing guide at Game Fair in Nashville, Laura is our Outings Officer in the club and Will is a new guy to club and caught a ride with Steve and Laura to the White River. Scott and I helped Steve, Laura, and Will unload his truck, pitch a couple of tents, and we all talked about their drive up from Nashville.
It may sound a little crazy to catch a ride with some people you have never met before and drive eight hours to a place you have never been before just to go fishing, but people do it. And after you get a glimpse of Steve, you might question yourself even more for your decision. But my response is…DO IT. I speak from personal experience. My first outing with the club was to the North River in East Tennessee and guess who I rode up there with...it was Steve and Laura. They picked my up at 4:30 in the morning, helped load my gear in Steve’s giant truck and we made the four hour drive to Tellico Plains, TN and it was the best trip of my life. I didn’t get a strike or catch any fish until Steve spent the whole day teaching me how to fish mountain streams. That day I learned Steve’s method of Rambo-Commando fly fishing and I thank Steve for his time and patience with me. If you are wondering, his methods work and I did manage to catch a few fish that weekend.
After Scott and I helped with Steve, Laura, and Will’s campsite, we decided to hit the river again. There are so many choices of places to fish on the White, it is just crazy to stay in one place. We decided to find a location that we have heard of before and see what the conditions on the river were that day, so we loaded up and headed out for Wildcat Shoals. Wildcat Shoals is about twelve to thirteen miles from the dam, so for the water released at the dam to reach Wildcat Shoals it takes about five to six hours, which would give us plenty of time to fish. We arrived at the parking area, stepped into our waders, strung up our rods, and make our way to the river. What we saw was amazing; fish were rising everywhere and now we had to figure out what they were eating.
I started with a bead head pheasant tail, went to a scud and numerous other flies and ended up with an olive wooly bugger. I managed to catch a few rainbows but the best fish for me was a 15”/16”inch brown trout and yes, I did get a photo. Scott on the other hand was king for the day. Scott caught two monster brown trout; one on a parachute ant and the other on a grey scud. Trust me…they had to be at least 17”/18” inches and yes, we have photos to prove it. We continued fishing for several more hours, catching more fish but nothing like the previous browns. I think we left the river about 6:00 or 6:30 and headed back to camp. Scott and I ate dinner and then joined Steve, Laura, and Will at the campfire for some beers and good stories. I am not sure what time I crashed, but it was not early, at least it didn’t seem early.
I guess it was about midnight when the skies opened up, the light show began, and a wind storm similar to a tornado decided to make its way through Arkansas and our campsite. Scott was sound a sleep in the camper of his truck, I however was wide awake. Here is just to give a little description of my sleeping quarters. My tent is about 10 years old and six foot by six foot. My air mattress is six foot by five foot, so my mattress rests on the walls of the tent and my clothes take up rest of the room. So when that storm blew in, I thought I was golden; the ground cloth is down, the rain fly is on, the tent is staked down, I am at least 6 inches off the ground, I have two blankets, and I have a sleeping bag rated to 30°F. I was wrong!
The rain fly does not go all the way to the ground and I found out in strong rain storms, my tent retains water on the floor of the tent. Since my air mattress rests against the sides of the tent, as soon as the sides of the tent get drenched in rain, my air mattress soaks up the water.. My air mattress is “flocked”; it has a soft layer on the side you sleep on at night. I went from sleeping stretched out to sleeping in the fetal position for the rest of night and the week. What was once a dry place to sleep is now a house for wet camping gear. I guess the questions is what didn’t get wet…that would be my clothes in the duffel bags. My blankets, sleeping bag, yesterdays clothes were all wet. I couldn’t wait until the morning and hope that this would storm would blow away.
The next morning I woke up, got dressed, and jumped out of the tent to survey the damage; I didn’t have too badly. The people staying next to Scott and I had a pop-up shelter over their picnic table. The key word here is “had”. Their pop-up looked as if they just bought it a junk yard and threw it on the ground. I made my way over to Steve and Laura’s campsite. Steve, Laura, and Will were fixing their pop-up shelter too, so I jumped in and helped straighten out the metal and re-stake the shelter. I was talking to Steve about the night and this was his experience, shortened just a bit.
“I woke up sometime during the night and the sides of the tent were caving in and popping back out. I immediately jumped up and started to support the walls and poles of the tent with my body. I looked over to Laura and said get up and put some clothes on, we’re about to lose the tent.” This pretty much summed up their night. Will was sleeping in a smaller tent just behind Steve and Laura tent. He didn’t do so well either. I think the only good thing about my campsite was that I was scattered in a bunch of trees and that helped shield the wind. I don’t want to talk about the storm to much, this is a trip report and there are many more fish to discuss.
After we ate breakfast and had a little coffee, the ever important questions finally arose. “Do you think the storm screwed things up and are we going to be able to fish today? The sky was still grey and it drizzled all morning long. But as soon as it blew in, the skies cleared up some and the sun came out. We all decided to head back to Wildcat Shoals and really this is the only place I fished the entire trip. If you aren’t keeping up, it is now Saturday. We got to Wildcat shoals about noon, at some lunch and hit the river. The fly pattern for Friday was the grey scud; Saturday it was an olive wooly bugger. I can count the number of fish I caught on the caught on the bugger. It was insane. The fish were feeding like crazy again. As soon as the fly was on the river, it was in the trout’s mouth. Of course, we didn’t catch fish on every cast, but we were catching fish and lots of them.
It is really hard to describe how a White River fish fights on the end of your line. I fish the Caney Fork River near Nashville and I know how a 12 inch fish fights. I also know how a 15” fish fights. But when you catch a 12 inch fish on the White, it feels as if you have 15 inch fish from the Caney. It’s great! You can’t tell what size the fish is going to be when you hook up; the trout could 12 inches or it could be 20 inches. The fish all fight hard and fight long.
After fishing, we all head back to camp to rest. And again, we talked about the fish we caught that day. The question came up again as usual, “where do you want to fish tomorrow?” My vote was Wildcat Shoals again. I had been there twice in the last two days and I don’t think I fished more that 500 yards of the river. I wanted to fish where I knew the fish were located and that is what I did.
I just want to make the point that my tent, blankets, and sleeping bag weren’t dry until I dried them at home. This trip has me looking for a new tent, a larger tent. I have to be able to set the tent up all up by myself. I want a tent with a rain fly that goes all the way to ground and has enough floor space for my air mattress, so that the mattress does not touch the walls of the tent. I am talking about a least a foot or two from all four sides of the mattress. I want enough room, so that if I have to brave another storm, I have enough room for a chair and cooler. I know this is a lot to ask, but if anyone knows of this miracle tent, please let me know. Thank you.
Sunday was a whole new day and a different fly pattern. Sunday was a good day for a green soft hackle and if you had one, you probably caught fish. I managed to cross the river at the edge of the shoals. I had spotted a few fish actively feeding on the edge of a run on the opposite side of the river. I waded my way over to a nice little spot. I tied on a chartreuse wire soft hackle and caught several nice fish, all rainbows. I need to get off of topic of fishing for a little bit.
I have a real gift for finding strange things in rivers that I fish and I usually keep the objects. I think I keep them for memories, and interesting conversation pieces. I was fishing the Caney one summer day and it was a day to remember. The fish were hitting everything I was throwing, I could do no wrong. I love days like that. I get one or two days like that per a summer. While I was fishing, I found the rusted metal object in the water. I dug it out of the rocks, looked it over, and kept it. I think is some kind of gate hook that fits on post; so back to the story. I was fishing this sweet little run and catching fish. For some reason, something caught my eye in the river. I looked down, plunged my arm in the cold water and found an old Pepsi bottle with “Pepsi Cola” and a design etched into the bottle. So I kept it and it now sits on the top of my entertainment center in my living room. After I got home I researched the markings on the bottom of the bottle. After several hours on the internet, I have come to find out that the Pepsi bottle was produced by Owens-Illinois Glass in Alton, Illinois in 1950. You never know what you’ll find when you aren’t looking for it.
While fishing the little run, I kept hearing fish feeding and splashing behind me. The thought of knowing fish are feeding behind you and not throwing flies to them would be a waste of the trip. That is why I am here; I am here to throw big ugly flies to large hungry trout. I made my way to a few rocks that were out of the water that would give me a better chance to cast my line further with a bigger fly.
I tied on an olive wooly bugger and casted my fly line out to the edge of the run. I stripped the line back to me to give the fly some movement under the water and maybe imitate a bait fish which would end in the hook up of trophy trout. As I stripped the fly back to me…nothing. So I casted the fly line back out again, but this time I casted a little bit further down stream. As I stripped the fly back to me…BAM! A strike and before I could set the hook, it was all over with. So again, I casted fly line back to the same spot. As I stripped the fly back to me…BAM! Again! The monster rainbow nearly pulled the fly rod out of my hands. It started to make a run on me and then it happened. The rainbow jumped out of the water, shook its head several times and threw my fly. Put my hands on my knees and let out a yell that rattled the trees. I had hooked into a rainbow that would have been at least eighteen to twenty inches…there went my trophy trout.
Even thought I had just lost the fish of a life time, it was not going to stop me. I tied on a new fly and went back at it casting to each little run I came across. For the next hour or so, I didn’t catch a thing. However, my buddy Scott was landing fish after fish after fish. After watching him catch about twenty fish, I waded on down stream to within an ear shot and asked the most important question of the day, “What are they hitting on?” Scott yelled “green soft hackle!” So I dug around in a fly box and found the magic fly of the day. I tied on some 6X tippet and a size 16 green soft hackle. I made a few cast to a swift run where a few fish were rising. The first couple of cast resulted in nothing; I started to question if I knew what I was really doing. Then finally…the sweet feel of the double tap; it was a trout hitting the fly and running downstream. I lifted the rod tip, set the hook, and the fish was on. That trout was one of many that came out of that hole.
Scott was across the river from me and was still land fish after fish. The sun was going down and my head lamp was at the truck. Just as I was considering calling it a day, I hear a familiar laugh; it was more like a “he he.” I looked over and Scott had a huge fish on. I yelled over, “I’ll be over in a minute! I will help you land it!” I started wading over. I would walk ten feet and step into a deep hole. Whoa, that water is cold! So for the next fifteen minutes, I played “Frogger” across the river until I was standing next to Scott. It is really amazing how quick the sun light can fade at sunset. I managed to grab Scott’s net and I tried to net the fish several time before I finally was able sweep the fish into the net.
Scott had an amazing 18” brown trout on a size 16 bead head olive soft hackle on 6X tippet with a wind knot about two inches from the fly. If you don’t know much about fly fishing: a size 14 hook is about half an inch in length, 6X tippet is 3 ½ pound test fishing line, and a wind knot can cut that 3 ½ pound test line in half to 1 to 2 pound test line and breaks much, much easier. We both started grabbing our digital cameras. We had to get photo documentation of the fish or no one would believe us. After about 5 or 6 photos from every angle, Scott released the fish and we called it a day.
I could go more into the story about wondering around in backyards and finding our way back to my truck with nothing more than the moon light, but it is time to draw this trip report to an end. I left for Arkansas on Wednesday night and it was now Sunday and I was ready to get home. On Monday, everyone at camp ate breakfast together; we packed up our campsite, and were on our way back to Nashville by 10:00 AM.
Once again, the outing was successful: everyone caught fish, some more so than others. We had braved a crazy storm and survived, and everyone was going home safely to fish another day. And all I can think about on the way home is I can’t wait to do it again next year!
Photos from the trip. http://www.mtff.org/forum/photos/photo-thumbnails.asp?albumid=29
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