Last weekend I had a two day guide trip with two men from Florida, Willie and Ken. Both were retired professionals and were in their mid to late seventies. As is my normal procedure, we fished the White River on the first day and the Norfork the next. We floated the White and waded the Norfork. This gives them a good look at what the twin lakes area has to offer, when it comes to fly fishing for trout.
The first day, on the White, went well. We floated in the Rim Shoals area. They were running about three quarters of a generator and there was little wind. The temperature was cool but was to warm a bit as the day wore on. They used their rods and I rigged them with a bead head flash back pheasant tail with a ruby midge dropper under a strike indicator with a BB split shot. I took care to place the split shot above the tippet knot to prevent it from slipping.
We were fishing about twenty five feet from the boat and I was drifting us through every likely spot that I could find. They did well and both caught plenty of trout. Willie had the hot hand and caught a few more than Ken. We didn’t count but I estimated that we landed between fifty and sixty trout. There were no really big fish. The fish we caught averaged thirteen to fourteen inches and fought well. A fine seventeen inch rainbow was our largest trout.
Ken wanted to wade the Norfork the next day but Willie was apprehensive. He had never waded before and was not sure what to expect. I assured him that the wading was easy and I would take special care to look after him. They were staying at River Ridge Inn and the owner, Jim Smith has a great collection of waders for clients to use if needed. When we came in the first day, I showed them the wader room and suggested that they be wadered up, when I arrived the next day, so that we would be ready to fish early.
I arrived there a few minutes early and donned my waders. They were ready to go at the appointed hour and we loaded into my Suburban and drove to the access. The temperature was a bit cool and it threatened to rain, so we took our rain jackets with us. The river was on the bottom with minimum flow and gin clear water. I loaned my wading staff to Willie and we waded upstream into the Catch and Release section.
I started with the rig that we had fished successfully the day before. We had limited initial success. I had put Willie in a gentle flow with a gravel bottom that would be easy to wade but still held plenty of fish. I decided to switch him over to a grasshopper with a midge dropper. That turned out to be the winning ticket in that area and he caught several nice trout including a few on the grasshopper, although most were on the dropper.
Ken was a more experienced wader. I had loaned him a spare pair of my boots that were studded, when I saw that he had selected plain rubber wading boots to wear. I put him in some heavy water with more challenging wading but generally held some really nice trout. He caught a few trout but it was time for a change. I decided to fish a pink worm. When I suggested it, Ken gave me a knowing smile. He had lived and fished in Colorado and had a healthy respect for brightly colored worms in heavy water. I added a ruby midge as a dropper.
As I walked away, I heard the splash of a good fish on his line. I think that the worm acts as an attractor that makes the trout look at it and then they see the midge dropper. Whatever it is, he began to catch more trout. When we broke for lunch, he had done well but had only caught one trout, on the pink worm. Incredibly, it had been a stout twenty two inch male brown with a bad attitude. We fished a section of private water behind the lodge, in the afternoon, and did well there. It was a successful day.
Many times we look at a given fly and dismiss it out of hand due to its shape or color. The important thing is whether it works.
John Berry is a fly fishing guide in Cotter, Arkansas and has fished our local streams for over thirty years.
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