WADE FISHING ON THE NORFORK BY JOHN BERRY

With the holidays, my guiding schedule and my job as the manager of Blue Ribbon Fly Shop, I found myself in the regrettable position of not having fished on my own for some time. I was getting pretty discouraged. The whole reason that I had retired here over fifteen years ago was to spend more time on the rivers fly fishing for trout.

With the recent flooding, I could see my opportunities disappearing before my eyes. I knew that we had a little wadable water on the Norfork now but as soon as the flooding downstream receded that the Corps of Engineers would be running a lot of water around the clock, in order to get the lake levels down to power pool in preparation for the spring rains.

My brother in law, Larry, was also in need of a good day or two of fly fishing. We conspired to go. I carefully watched the prediction and sent him a text when I found suitable conditions. We had a solid weekend with reliable wadable water on the Norfork.

He and his wife, Terri (my wife, Lori’s, sister), drove up from Memphis Friday afternoon. I had to work on Saturday but Larry left the house at 6:15 AM and was on the river before seven. He did well and fished until the water came up in the early afternoon. He called me from Heidi’s Ugly Cakes in Norfork and asked if I wanted him to bring me one of her excellent ruebens. I eagerly accepted his kind offer. He dropped by with the sandwich and we planned on fishing together the next day.

We left the house at 6:15 AM and arrived at the Ackerman Access around 6:45. It was around twenty seven degrees and there was an incredibly heavy frost. The trees and grass were cover with frost and it looked like a winter wonderland. We were the first ones there and we waded upstream into the Catch and Release section. We noticed that the water was heavily stained and wondered aloud why. There had been no rain in a week.

We were the first ones there and we had our choice of water. I had rigged my rod in my garage the night before. I began fishing the grass hopper with a ruby midge dropper and had no luck. I figured with the stained water the trout couldn’t see the hopper. I switched over to a double nymph rig, a cerise San Juan worm and a hare and copper fly. There were no takers. I checked with Larry and noted that he had landed three on an olive woolly bugger. The sun had come up and I welcomed the warmth. It had really turned out to be a nice day. It was time to get serious.

I decided to switch the hare and copper nymph out for a light orange egg. That did the trick and I was into trout on the second cast. I fished in several spots and each one surrendered a few trout. About half were taken on the egg pattern and half were taken on the San Juan worm. I quickly lost count as did Larry who continued to do well with the woolly bugger. We fished for about four hours and then decided that we had caught enough. We had not landed any big fish but we had enjoyed the day immensely. We headed back to Cotter and took Lori and Terri to a late breakfast at the White Sands Restaurant.

It was nice to be on the river again.

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