HITTING THE WHITE RIVER WITH OUR SON

Saturday afternoon brought a great day to our house.  Our son Ken from Minnesota was stopping by as he finished up a month long motorcycle trip that took him from Minnesota up into Canada, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and everywhere in between.  We hadn't seen each other since February in Florida so we were really looking forward to his visit.

After he had a chance to clean some of the road grime off himself we told him we were going to PJ's for dinner.  PJ's is the finest restaurant in this entire area.  Ken all of a sudden had a little spring in his step when he heard that news. 

Ken indicated that he would really like to go fly fishing on Sunday so his mother and I were more than happy to head to the river with him.

We arrived at the White River around 8:30 Sunday morning and were met by great looking water with a fair amount of fog in the air.  The temperature was tolerable and we were hoping that the fog and cloud cover would stick around for a while.  We got the boat launched and headed up river.  

Ken has been fly fishing for about five years now but living in western Minnesota doesn't give him much of a chance to fly fish.  So the only time he really gets a fly rod in his hands is when comes to Arkansas.  However he did managed to break out his travel rod a few times on his trip.  Over these five years it has been great watching his casting skills progress from trying to overpower his casts to now letting the rod pretty much do the work for him.  Ken has turned into a pretty darn good fly caster.

As we got the boat into position both Ken and his mother were ready to catch some fish.  I got on the oars so they could both fish.  On the first drift Ken lost a few fish but his mother managed to bring a couple rainbows to the net.  Ken blamed the lost fish on being cramped up from the long motorcycle trip.  

The second drift changed Ken's luck.  He managed to catch a couple of rainbows so he was right back in the game. 

At about 11AM the fog burned off and the sun popped out and the humidity started to take its toll on us.  We fished until about 12:30 and decided to call it a day since the weather was getting very hot and humid.  

Overall it was a fantastic day.  Among the three of us we managed to catch about 25 fish, nothing big, but plenty of action.  The highlight for Mary and I was being able to spend some quality time with Ken doing something we all enjoy.  Hopefully his next visit will be longer so we will have time to do more fun stuff.