FISHING IN THE MUD BY JOHN BERRY

I was scheduled to guide a young couple, on her first fly fishing trip last Sunday. The day before, I was in Memphis celebrating Christmas, with my family. I checked the weather and I must say that it looked pretty grim. There was a huge front moving in that promised heavy thunderstorms and tornadoes. I called my client and we agreed that the conditions were bad. They were in the area for a few days and we agreed to touch base on Sunday and see if we could fish on Monday. We got so much rain on Sunday that we had flood conditions on the White and Norfork that fishing on Monday was out of the realm of possibility but we made a commitment for Tuesday.

Tuesday arrived and I checked conditions. Crooked Creek and the Buffalo were in flood and all of that muddy water was ending up in the White. The water was backed up on the Norfork all the way to the dam and the White was backed up to past Rim Shoals. When you encounter situations like this, you head upstream, until you find clear water. There was none on the Norfork and very little on the White. I decided to fish in Cotter. Though the water was off color, it is my home water (I live in Cotter) and I pretty know where all of the hazards are. The problem in fishing in off color water is that you cannot see obstructions and you have to move carefully.

I met my clients, Ralph and Taylor, at 7:30 AM and we drove to Big Spring Park in Cotter. They were bundled up, for the near freezing weather, with no sun. The river was off color and it looked like about 3,000 CFS (cubic feet per second or about one full generator). I began, with a brief casting class, for Taylor. She picked it up quickly. I then rigged the rods and got the boat ready to launch. I put a pink San Juan worm, on each rod, along with an AAA split shot and a strike indicator. I put a different dropper, on each rod, to see what would work.

We began drifting, in front of the park, but got no takers. We decided to motor upstream, to the area, between the new highway 62 bridge and the old railroad bridge. On the third drift, we hit a big brown, on a cerise San Juan worm. It put up a good but short fight. I think that Ralph was experienced enough, to bring it in quickly. He had fished Alaska a few months before and was adept at handling large Salmon. It turned out to be a fat twenty five inch brown that was his largest brown ever. We took some photos and carefully returned the trout to the water.

At noon, we broke for lunch. The temperature was hovering around thirty four degrees and everyone was chilled to the bone. Taylor was particularly cold. I invited them to my house for lunch and a warm up, as I only live about five blocks away. We drove to my house and I took my Yeti, with the lunch in it, into the house. We ate at the dining room table and luxuriated in the warmth. I made a pot of fresh coffee and we all had a mug. I went into my fishing armoire (where I store all of my extra equipment) and found my sack of hand warmers and toasty toes and passed them out. They were well received.

We returned to the river. Fortified by lunch, coffee and some warmth we were ready to face the afternoon. The water rose a bit and cleared some. We began picking up some trout on our dropper midge patterns. We fished till about four.

My clients had enjoyed the day despite the condition. We had landed a trophy brown and some nice rainbows

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