FISHING AFTER THE RAIN BY JOHN BERRY

This week was the first time that I have been out on the water since we had all, of that rain, which resulted in flood conditions in several areas. The main reason that I had not fished of late is that several of my clients cancelled their trips due to the river conditions. I am not one that likes to be idle and it was really nice to be back on the water.

My first gig was a two day corporate trip for River Ridge Inn. The lodge is on the Norfork and we could see the large amount of water flowing by. The turbine releases was augmented by the water coming through several flood gates. The two combined for a volume of about 18,000 cubic feet per second. Though that is a lot of water, the real problem is that the water was the color of chocolate milk. Conditions like this are dangerous. You cannot see obstacles in the water just below the surface and could easily hit something that you don’t see. With this much water, you would be in trouble before you knew it. 

The best bet was to fish the White River. Conventional wisdom, for fishing the rivers after a big rain, is to head upstream, until you find clear water. Due to flooding on Crooked Creek and the Buffalo River, the closest place to fish the White was Rim Shoals. When these streams first flooded there was so much water coming down it could not flow downstream on the White quick enough and the White backed up and flooded the Rim Shoals area. Luckily for us the flood waters had receded and the area was fishable.

The water was slightly stained and the flows were fairly low, about 2,500 cubic feet per second. Bull Shoals Lake is near the top of flood pool as are Beaver Lake and Table Rock. They are not running water at Bull Shoals now despite generating a lot on the lakes above it. That water is being stored until the flooding downstream has cleared.

With the water a bit off color, we decided to fish a bright pink San Juan worm, with a ruby midge suspended below it. I always fish a worm after a big rain because there are always a lot of worms that are washed into the river during a rain. One of my fellow guides told me that he had caught several trout recently that had absolutely gorged on worms. I like the bright pink worms because they show up in stained water and act as an attractor.

We began fishing and caught three, on the first drift. We caught ninety percent, of our trout, on the ruby midge and the rest on the San Juan worm. The best trout we caught were a fat nineteen inch rainbow and a stout sixteen inch cutthroat. We fished until around 4:00 PM and it fished well all day.

There is life after the rain.