ANOTHER GREAT DAY ON THE WHITE RIVER

April has been a busy month for Blue Ribbon Guides.  John and I have had numerous guide trips and have spent many days on the rivers.

On April 29th I was to have a guide trip with Kelly from Midland, Texas.  However, due to storms the two previous days and high, off-colored water we decided to postpone the trip until April 30th. That morning brought much more favorable conditions, even though the White River was still a little high and slightly off colored.  I picked Kelly up at 7:30 at the rental house he and his wife were renting in Norfork and we headed to the White.

I decided to fish several miles downstream from Bull Shoals Dam since there has been quite a bit of didymo up river.

We launched the boat and began fishing.  Kelly is a self-taught fly caster and that sometimes means, as a guide, we have to give a little more fly fishing instruction than we do with more experienced fishermen.  However, this was not the case with Kelly.  Kelly started with a two fly rig, long leader, lead and a strike indicator.  He immediately showed that he knew his way around a fly rod.  The first location proved unproductive so we motored downstream and finally started catching fish.  Numerous  smaller rainbows were caught and then Kelly hooked into a very nice fat bow.  After a quick photo of the fish, it was released to fight another day.

After lunch we headed back downstream and started working with the two fly rig again.  We continued to hit the rainbows until a small caddis hatch emerged.  I switched Kelly over to a rod already set up with a caddis dry fly and dropper.  Kelly was sight casting to numerous rising fish and managed to catch a few rainbows.  Then the caddis hatch stopped as soon as it started.  We switched back to the two fly nymph rig and were back into the rainbows. 

After catching several nice rainbows Kelly hooked into what appeared to be a much nicer fish.  The way it was fighting and staying down, I immediately thought it was a brown trout.  Kelly fought the fish like a pro and brought it to the net.  It was a very nice brown.  Another picture and the brown was released.

Kelly proved to be a really good fly fisherman and was a pleasure to have in my boat.  Hopefully, we will be able to repeat this trip and spend some more time chasing the White River trout.