OPENING DAY BLUES

BY JOHN BERRY

Last Saturday was opening day. For the uninitiated, this is an annual event. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission closes the Catch and release sections below Bull Shoals dam from November 1 through January 31 to protect the brown trout spawn. Back in the day you were allowed to fish these big fish when they were on their redds. It was decided that this fishing pressure during the spawn was not helpful for the goal of naturally producing brown trout, our trophy fish. During the spawn, the browns do not routinely feed. Instead they are more interested in reproducing. Therefore on opening day we are angling for trout that have not been fished over or fed for three months. These are not a bunch of stockers. These are large brown trout concentrated in one section of the river. 

That is the good news. The problem is that there are several anglers that have figured this out. This means that it can get a bit crowded. When they are running water on opening day, this quickly translates into an anything that floats kind of day. When they are not generating, it can get covered up with wade fishers. 

My wife, Lori, and I try to fish opening day every year because we feel it is a great chance to land a trophy brown. In the past Lori has done well when fishing from the boat (with me handling the boat and her fishing). I have done better on the wade trips because I have more of an opportunity to fish. The forecast this year was for lower conditions. They were to run about 700 cubic feet of water per second or minimum flow. The weather was forecast to be nasty, with a high of 51 degrees, rain and lake wind advisories. 

Lori was not particularly enthusiastic about the conditions. She was concerned about the crowds on low water, the increased volume of water from minimum flow and the cold and wet conditions. I told her that the weather might deter a lot of the crowd and the weather would not be too bad. I had not waded that area under minimum flow. We agreed to drive over and have a look. If it was too crowded, we would go somewhere else to fish. We waited until after lunch to see if the early crowd had left the river. 

When I dressed for the afternoon, I made an error. My base layer was short sleeved and I wore a vest in lieu of an extra fleece jacket. That meant that I only had one layer, a medium weight wool sweater on my arms. In addition, I wore a baseball hat instead of my much warmer Elmer Phud hat. I realized my mistake, when I stepped out of my suburban at the access. The temperature had dropped to 39 degrees, the wind was howling and there was a slow steady rain. I decided to tough it out. 

The area was not too crowded. I counted about a dozen other waders. We walked down to the river. Under minimum flow the water was much heavier than in the past and wading was much tougher. Most of the anglers were hugging the near bank. There were a few anglers had accessed a gravel bar by boat and a few good waders had waded over. They were all hugging the edge of the gravel bar. We waded close to the near bank. 

I hit a deeply colored twenty inch rainbow on my second cast. Early success is usually a bad omen. This was my last fish on the fly that day. I then made my second mistake of the day. I invited Lori to fish below me. I thought that the wading might be a bit easier for her. She commenced to use her Winston fly rod like a vacuum cleaner and sucked up every trout in her path. As I followed her, I did not get another bump. She did not hit anything of any size. The same went for the various anglers around us. I saw a few fish landed but no large trout. 

The wind shifted and was now blowing the rain into our face. My hands were taking a major hit from the wind and the constant rain. My fingerless wool gloves were soaked and my fingers were getting stiff. I was beginning to get chilled and I was not enjoying myself. I cranked up my line and waded to the bank. I tucked my rod under my arm and put my frozen hands into my hand warmer pockets. I walked around to generate a bit of heat. It helped a lot. 

I ran into Dylan Stanley, an accomplished angler from Searcy. I watched him fish through the run that I had just fished. I am embarrassed to say that I was relieved when he did not pick up a single trout. He walked up and I told him about my embarrassment and we had a good laugh over that. We talked about his past success with big fish on opening day. He also said that he had been on stream at 5:30 AM and had achieved early success having caught four browns over twenty inches (nothing over twenty three inches) and about fifteen rainbows. The fishing had definitely been better early on but had been crowded. Dylan said that he had counted forty two anglers at day light. Lori started to get cold and we left around five o’clock. 

This year’s opening day had not been a major success. We got there late and I had not been properly dressed. There is always next year. 

John Berry is a fly fishing guide in Cotter, Arkansas and has fished our local waters for over thirty years.