Although much of the fishing done on this trip was with spinning gear, fly fishing was used for many of the trout. Sometimes you have to be flexible in your tactics!
Mike Oldani and I (Scott Payne) headed down to the White River on the 24th of August for three days of chasing trout. Our destination was Cotter, Arkansas. We were roughly 16 miles below the Bull Shoals Dam. We arrived at His Place Resort on Tuesday evening. The cabins were rustic, but everything was clean and in good working order. The owners, Julie and Steve, definitely made us feel comfortable and gave us some good fishing advice for the next day of fishing. That evening we noticed the water level was very high. It would prove to stay that way all week.
We got up early Wednesday morning expecting to get on the water right away, but had to wait for the river fog to clear. With water temps in the 50’s and air temps in the upper 80’s, the thick fog did not burn off until 0815 every day. The boat we had rented from the resort worked like a champ, and got us upriver to start our first drift down. To point out, normal wadable water flow is 700-1000 cfs. The river was at 10,000 cfs in the mornings, going to 18,000 cfs in the afternoons. The dam needed to produce power, a lot of power!
It became evident quickly, that fly fishing would be very difficult. We made the decision to switch to spinning gear, until we felt more comfortable on the high water. The switch paid off quickly, as we targeted the east shoreline with small spoons, Renegades and Little Cleos. We floated down to the Hwy 62 bridge, roughly 5 miles. We ended up with 12 trout, to include Mike’s first brown trout.
Just below the Hwy 62 bridge, we found a wadable island on the west bank and broke out the fly rods. We caught a couple of trout, but due to high, and rising water, we reverted back to spinning rods. Then we saw a monster! As I was reeling in a small 12” rainbow, a huge brown came up from a hole and tried to eat my catch. My eyes got as big as dinner plates and I prayed he would eat it, but he missed at his attempt. We then were convinced that there were monster fish in this river. We ended the day around 5pm. Water was now up on people’s lawns, and floating debris made it difficult to keep hooks clean.
We ran into a few guide boats during the week. They were targeting both shorelines with hopper patterns. Their fishing was slower, but they did catch some very nice browns. The fly had to be placed very tight up against to shore, and usually around structure, downed trees or boulders. Since our boat did not have oars, we couldn’t safely maneuver the boat that tight, so we ended up spin casting to the shore.
Thursday and Friday were more of the same. We would run up to the Wild Cat boat launch and drift the east shoreline. We saw some big fish, just could not get the big bite. We did have two 20” fish on, but could get them to the boat. To note, we did catch fish on the west shoreline, and some from the middle. The east side just seemed more productive. Another very productive spot was 200 yards up from His Place Resort. There was a very pronounced seam with vegetation. Wherever we found vegetation, we always found fish. Then in the afternoons, when the river was rising, we found fish on shallow, shoreline gravel beds. We think they were trying to find slower water to rest in.
In all, we landed 123 trout in three days. We probably watched 300+ trout follow our lures, and had 200+ on, but get off before reaching the boat. The action was very good all week. Better in the morning, but we still caught fish in the afternoons. Most fish caught were 12-15 inch rainbows on ultra-light spinning gear. We had luck with the before mentioned spoons, Rapala X-Raps (size 6), Rapala Ultra Light Shad Raps (grey shad color), and small bucktail jigs (yellow and brown colors). The flies that caught us fish included Pat’s Rubber Legs, Stonefly patterns with longer rubber legs, and an egg pattern (yellow with orange spot).
This body of water is a great fishery with lots of big fish potential! Just be very flexible with your fishing tactics, due to changing water conditions. Also, give His Place Resort a call. They have fishing packages that make the trip very reasonable. If you have any questions, give Mike or me a call.
