A RETURN TO FISHING HIGH WATER BY JOHN BERRY

After months of low wadable water, we have returned to a high water that looks like it is going to be around for quite a while. Up to the last few days the Corps of Engineers has been running a lot of water on the Norfork both through the generators and the flood gates. At the same time the corps, was holding back water on the White with very little generation, while waiting for the flooding downstream to clear. Late last week the closed the flood gates on the Norfork and conditions returned to near normal. At the same time generation on the White was picked up to about four full generators or about 12,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). It has since opened the flood gates on the White is currently adding an additional 12,000 cfs to their generation.

I had a couple of guide trips last week. I chose to fish on the White River on the first one. It had rained the night before and the water was stained. I started at Rim Shoals but did poorly. I rigged the rods with a cerise San Juan worm with a ruby midge dropper with lots of weight. The going was pretty slow and at lunch we put my boat on the trailer and drove to the Bull Shoals Dam access. We found the water to be crystal clear here. Conventional wisdom is always to move upstream, after a rain, to find clear water. We did much better here and caught several nice fish.

The next day I guided a father and son. My wife, Lori, had guided the son on Dry Run Creek the previous day and had done exceptionally well. I definitely had my work cut out for me to get anywhere close to the success that she had on Dry Run Creek.

It was a four boat trip and three of the guides including myself decided to fish the Norfork River. The prediction was for the Corps to run two full generators (around 5,500 cfs) for the entire day. In reality, the actual generation, when we started was more like one generator. We decided to launch our boats at the ramp at Quarry Park, below the dam, because there had been significant gravel recruitment, below Mill Pond. That would limit our access to the Catch and Release section from the access at the confluence, on the lower flow.

We began fishing, with a cerise San Juan worm and a Sundayspecial dropper. We set the depth at six feet, with a big strike indicator and an AAA split shot (.8 grams). We picked up some fish immediately. About 10:30 AM, the water started coming up. I had to adjust my tackle, to account, for the increase, in flow. I finally had to increase the depth of my rig (from the strike indicator to the bottom fly) to ten feet or better. I also had to add an additional AB split shot (.6 grams), to the rig, to get it down to the bottom of the water column. This made a difference and we began picking up fish.

The rest of the day went well. We had originally planned to eat lunch on the picnic tables at Quarry Park but noted that they were gone. I assume that they had been washed away during the recent flooding on the Norfork. We finished the day and caught some nice trout but were unable to match Lori’s previous day on Dry Run Creek.