Despite a recent rain event, the lake levels on the White River system have fallen a bit. The lake level at Bull Shoals Dam fell one tenth of a foot to rest at two feet below power pool at 654.00 feet. Up stream, TableRockLake fell seven tenths of a foot to settle at three and eight tenths of a foot below power pool. BeaverLake fell one tenth of a foot to settle at six and nine tenths of a foot below pool. There generation pattern on the White has been a bit of a mixed bag. On some days, there have been one or two spikes of heavy generation followed by periods of low generation. On other days, there have been short periods of very light generation. This has created some great wading opportunities and some excellent boating opportunities. It has been extremely cold and incredibly windy with a couple of warm pleasant days thrown in that allowed for some great fishing. NorforkLake has risen one tenth of a foot to rest four and four tenths feet below power pool of 552.00 feet. The pattern on the Norfolk has been a mixed bag. We had a few days with no generation and some days with a brief period of heavy generation. This has created excellent wading conditions every day.The forecast is for the weather to remain cold with the possibility of precipitation. With the existing conditions, we should have some wadable water on both rivers.
Keep in mind that the Catch and Release area below Bull Shoals Dam opens on February, 1. This section has been closed for the past few months while the brown trout have been spawning and no one has been allowed to fish here during this period. I caution all wading anglers to please avoid walking through the Redds (spawning beds recently filled with fertilized eggs by brown trout). Now is a particularly vulnerable time for the eggs and they need to be left alone so that they can hatch and become big brown trout. The redds can easily be identified as clean light colored depressions in the gravel bottom.
The next major event on the TwinLakes fishing calendar is the shad kill. This is when threadfin shad are drawn through the turbines at Bull Shoals and Norfork dam. This usually occurs sometime from January to March during periods of very low temperature and high generation. This generally happens just after the brown trout spawn when they are very hungry. It is usually the best time to land a huge trout. This is not a reliable phenomenon and sometimes there is no shad kill. As yet, there have been no shad observed. One of the early indicators is, gulls converging below the dams to feed on the shad. The best flies to use during the shad kill would be large white streamers. Be sure to carry both floating and sinking flies.
Despite the generally cold and windy conditions, we had an incredible weekend with high temperatures and sunny wind less days.There were many anglers that took advantage of the unseasonably pleasant weather. One hot spot was the Narrows. There have been several reports of great fishing on black zebra midges with silver wire and silver beads and olive woolly buggers.
Rim Shoals was fishing very well. The hot flies for this section have been olive woolly buggers, olive scuds and black zebra midges with silver wire and silver bead. The deeper holes along the first island have been productive particularly with Y2Ks. On high water, the hot fly has been the San Juan worm in cerise.
The Norfork has fished a bit better this week. There have been some reliable midge hatches in the afternoon. Anglers have done the best with Norfork bead heads in olive size eighteen, zebra midges in black with silver wire and silver beads and brown with copper wire and copper beads in the same size. When the fish are keying in on the midge emergers in the film, Dans turkey tail emerger in size twenty two have been killer. To change things up try large San Juan worms in red and worm brown and Y2Ks. They frequently tempt large trout.
Dry Run Creek, as always, has been the place to take the kids fishing. The warm weekend drew out a few youngsters. Those few that showed up did exceptionally well. The hot fly was a size fourteen sowbug. Other effective flies were olive woolly buggers and San Juan worms. Be sure and use at least 4X tippet and carefully pinch down those barbs.
Practice water safety and always check conditions before you leave home.
John Berry is a fly fishing guide in Cotter, Arkansas and has fished our local streams for over twenty five years.
