John Berry's Fishing Report 6/14/07 - North Arkansas Fly Fishers

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TOPIC: John Berry's Fishing Report 6/14/07

mtipton

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Posts: 197

Date: Jun 15, 2007

John Berry's Fishing Report 6/14/07	Permalink

Recent rains have raised water levels on the lakes on the White River System. BullShoalsLake is currently three and one half feet above pool of 654.00 feet. Up stream, TableRockLake has risen to three feet above pool. BeaverLake however has remained at three quarters of a foot above pool. Norfork has remained basically unaffected at two and three quarters of a foot above pool at 552.00 feet. To deal with this additional water, the Corps of Engineers has been running three generators at Bull Shoals Dam around the clock. They have also been running a bit of water on the Norfork in the afternoon. With this much water in the lakes and some hot temperatures in the weather forecast we can expect more high water in the foreseeable future. Boating on higher water is more risky. Make sure that you have the proper personal flotation devices (life jackets) in your boat. It is a good idea to actually wear them. Do not overload your craft with too many passengers. At this level of generation, it is not safe to anchor or drag chains. Remember dragging chains is always illegal on the NorforkRiver. The increased water flow has pretty much eliminated the opportunity to wade fish the White River. Fishing in general on the White has been a bit slow. The best way to fish it now is to use brightly colored San Juan worms on long tippets. You should add plenty of weight to the leaders to get them down to the bottom of the water column. The best colors would be blood red, bright pink, fire orange and chartreuse. To get the attention of the trout the worms should be large. I would recommend size ten or larger. In order to properly fish this rig you will need a pretty large strike indicator. One particularly good tactic to increase the productivity of the San Juan worm is to add a dropper to it. Tie an eighteen inch tippet to the bend in the hook and attach a midge larva fly to it. The best fly for this purpose would be a size twenty zebra midge. The San Juan worm will draw the trouts attention to the nymph. Remember that the regulations for the Catch and Release areas call for barbless single hook artificial. A dropper rig would be illegal there. Another good tactic is to cast large dry flies right up toward the bank. It is of course important that you achieve a perfect drag free drift. This is a tough way to fish and it requires a bit of casting skill. It can be very rewarding to watch a good trout take your fly on the top. Be sure to exercise exacting line control and remove slack during the drift so that you can set the hook on the strike. Good flies for this tactic would be large grass hoppers and stimulators. I particularly like to fish the large western foam grass hoppers and ants. The NorforkRiver has been wadable particularly in the morning. There has been some generation but it has been limited to the afternoon. While the bite here has also been a bit slow, it has been fishing better than the White. Up by the dam the resident population of Brook Trout has been active on small zebra midges and brightly colored marabou jigs. Further down stream olive woolly buggers have been effective on the rainbows with an occasional brown trout. The best fishing on the Norfork is in the McClellans area. Though this area is closed to walk in access it can still be reached by boat by drifting down from the Dam. Dead drifting size twenty black zebra midges has been very effective. If you prefer to fish the top, try Chucks emergers size eighteen or Dans turkey Quill emergers size twenty two. Both have been effective lately. Just down stream, the Mill Pond area has been very productive producing some large brown trout on sculpin patterns fished deep. With summer vacations here, there has been increased pressure on Dry Run Creek. Try fishing early or late to avoid the crowds. Remember that this is also a great place to cool off on a hot day. The narrow valley holds the frosty temperatures of the creek and it can be twenty degrees cooler than the temperatures in the parking lot. Be sure to practice water safety and always check conditions before leaving home. John Berry is a fly fishing guide in Cotter, Arkansas. He has been fishing our local waters for over twenty five years. He can be reached at (870) 435-2169 or http://www.berrybrothersguides.com . __________________

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