Here, of late, the Corps of Engineers has been running a lot of water, on the White River, around the clock. On the Norfork, they have been running high water most, of the day, with a brief window, of low water, in the morning. That brief window keeps getting smaller. The other day I got a call from Ron, an old client of mine. He wanted me to teach his lady friend, Patricia, how to fly fish, on the Little Red River. I have not fished the Little Red in a while and had not kept up with water conditions so I checked out the water levels, on my computer, as I talked to him.
The first thing I noticed was that the lake level was well below the top of power pool and there was wadable water available most of the day every day. This sounded like something that would be a nice change of pace, from the fishing conditions that we have here. I agreed to meet him and teach Patricia how to fly fish and at the same time put him on some trout.
The Little Red is the closest trout stream to Memphis and Little Rock. This is a double edged sword. While it is convenient to both cities, it gets a lot of pressure and there has been a lot of development on and near the river. At some places on the river, I almost feel like I am fishing in someone’s back yard. That is the down side. On the up side there is no minimum flow and the wading is pretty easy.
I met up with Ron and Patricia around 8:00 AM at Swinging Bridge, a public access on the Little Red, on a Thursday morning. There was no one else there. We had it all to ourselves. The temperature was in the sixties with a predicted high of seventy two degrees. We started with a casting class for Patricia and then walked down to the river and began wading downstream. I started by fishing soft hackles but had no takers. I then moved downstream a bit further to a nice deep run and began fishing pink San Juan worms. It had rained the day before and the river was lightly stained. I always try San Juan worms after a rain and this time it paid off.
After a few casts, Patricia hooked and landed a nice brown trout, her first trout ever. She was off to the races. She landed three before Ron landed one. After the worm quit producing, we switched over to peach eggs. That worked like a charm and we did well. We ended the morning with around a dozen trout.
At noon, we waded back to the access and drove over to Cow Shoals, another access. It had picnic tables, in the shade, porta-potties and some good looking water that we hadn’t fished. We ate our lunch and returned to the water. This water was upstream of swinging bridge and was gin clear. I switched them over to a sow bug and went looking for a spot to fish. I noticed some nice holes in the mostly weed covered bottom and had them fish those. The results were immediate. We walked about looking for those holes in the weed and found that most had one or more good fish in them. We spent the afternoon fishing them and did quite well. Patricia thoroughly enjoyed herself and figured that this sport was for her. Ron was ecstatic with the outcome.
About 3:45 PM, the water came up. By then, they were about worn out and had caught enough trout. We walked out, stored our gear and headed back home. It had been a great day for me and was a pleasant change of pace, with low water, easy wading and plenty of time on stream. We all look forward to our next trip there.
John Berry is a fly fishing guide for Blue Ribbon Guides in Cotter, Arkansas and has fished our local streams for over thirty years.
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