TWO DAYS ON THE RIVER BY JOHN BERRY

This Monday and Tuesday I had a two-day guide trip with a father and son from Kansas City. Dad had fished here in the past but had not fished here lately. His son, Will, had fished Dry Run Creek but had never been on the White and Norfork. The plan was to fish from a boat on the White River and wade the Norfork the next. I have been guiding both rivers quite a bit lately and they have been fishing well.

On the first day, we fished the White River at Rim Shoals. The weather was warm but very windy. I found a spot that offered a bit of protection from the wind but not enough. I had rigged their rods with red fox squirrel and copper nymphs a ruby midge dropper, a bit of lead and a strike indicator. The red fox squirrel nymph accounted for about a third of the fish and the ruby midge accounted for two thirds. We were catching fish pretty much at will. We landed around fifty trout the largest being about sixteen inches long. It was all numbers but not much size.

The next day we fished the Norfork. We started at the dam because we were waiting for the water to drop out downstream. It was unseasonably warm and there was a gentle rain falling with no appreciable wind. I personally love fishing in the rain because nothing thins the herd like a little rain. We had the river to ourselves for the entire day. We began with the flies that we had used the previous day.

The going was slow below the dam. We finally caught a few trout. I quickly pumped their stomachs to see what they had been eating. I thought if I knew what they were keying in on that I could change flies and catch more and better trout. I was very concerned when I found that they were gorging on daphnia. These are really small aquatic insects that periodically come through the dam. Their common name is water flea. They are impossible to duplicate with a fly and when the trout key in on them the fishing can be very challenging.

The water dropped out and it was time to move downstream to the Ackerman Access, to try our luck in the catch and release section. We kept the same flies and waded far upstream from the access. Our first hookup was a twenty-one-inch rainbow. I thought things might be looking up. We began picking up trout on a regular basis. I pumped the stomachs of a couple of trout and noted no daphnia. Maybe it has not worked its way this far down stream.

We continued fishing and Will caught an even larger trout. This one was a twenty-three-inch rainbow. It was the biggest rainbow that he had ever landed and a trophy in anybody’s book. We caught several more nice trout but nothing that would beat that. We finished the day with about half as many fish as the day before. They definitely preferred the fishing on the Norfork due to the quality of the fishing.

They had two great days of fishing on our local trout streams and they left with smiles on their faces.