Tag: AR

Lagniappe

487 x 34,585 x 95 x 149

By TB

For much of the past two years, we’ve been on our River Ramble, exploring trout streams across the USA.  All total, we’ve been on this journey for 487 days and have visited TU Greatest 100 trout streams in 26 different states.  In fact, we’ve now fished 95 of the Top 100 streams and 149 different trout streams in all.  I know what you’re thinking, you’re still 5 short, and indeed we are.  There is one more state we’ve yet to visit, Alaska.  While we are looking forward and already deep into planning our Alaska adventure to fish the final 5 (and a few more of course) of the TU 100, we wanted to take a moment to look back on this past two years.

As we’ve continued to discover, Its Not About the Fish…. its about the people we continue to meet along our Ramble.  We’ve been blessed to have fished with some of the best guides in the world on the best trout streams in the world.  In small villages and communities, we’ve met some great local fly shop owners and staff who’ve sent us to some off the beaten path fisheries that, while not TU Top 100 streams, easily could have been.  What we’ve enjoyed most have been guides, shop owners and community members who’ve befriended us, shared their stories with us and allowed us to see the rivers through their eyes and experiences.  We feel so lucky to have met each and every one.

Our tagline for our blog, “Fly fishing, food, friends and fun” has been just that.  We’ve sampled more than a few local brews, pubs, diners and dives along the way.  We’ve also had a great time visiting family and friends in Arizona, Indiana, Missouri and Montana…. rafting, zip lining, pickle ball, baseball, hiking and of course, fishing too.

Our “mothership”, the SaraLinda, has performed like a champ, taking us nearly 35,000 miles along this journey.  We’ve camped in state forests, state parks, national parks, Corps of Engineers campgrounds and even dry camped in amazing, remote locations.  The 180 sq. ft. we’ve been living in is dwarfed by the incredible outdoor expanse we’ve called home these two years.  Our backyards have been the Tetons, Yellowstone, Great Smoky Mountains, Appalachian Trail, Maine wilderness and stream side campgrounds in most every state we visited.

2016 was a great year and we posted up a “Year in Review” video for it last December.  We’ll be fishing numerous streams across the country in 2018 as well as the streams we’ll fish in Alaska, but for now, we wanted to share a look back at 2017.   We hope you enjoy this short music video and a few highlights from our 2017 River Ramble.

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Guide Talk, Little Red

Runnin’ Up the Little Red

By TB

When we met our guide for the Little Red River, Jamie Rouse of Rouse Fly Fishing, we were experiencing conflicting emotions.  It was the last river of our River Ramble adventure in the lower 48 states we were to fish.  We were happy we’d made it this far but sad that this part of the adventure was coming to an end.

Like the Norfork, they’d not been generating at the dam, so, the water levels and flow in the river were low.  However, Jamie had just the spots for us to explore.  We jumped in his boat and headed upstream, fishing around weed beds, trying to lure hiding trout to our flies.  He asked us if we wanted the day to be “silly great” and given it was our last guide trip in the lower 48, we said “ABSOLUTELY!”  Hence, we started fishing with egg patterns which drew rainbows one after another to the boat.  Later, we jigged a bit, and threw streamers and hooked into some nice browns.

As we left the river, we chatted with Jamie on the ride back to our car.  He is one of the most knowledgable and fun guides you could ask for.  He kept us laughing all day, of course “silly” fishing and having tons of fun.  We’ll be back to fish with Jamie in the spring when the river comes back into good shape, but for now, we hope you enjoy our “Guide Talk” with him…. truck style!

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Guide Talk, Norfork, White

Welcome Back Cotter

By TB

We had fished the White River before, a couple of times, but, really looked forward to fishing it again with some of the team from Dally’s Ozark Fly Fisher in Cotter, AR.  Cotter lays claim to being  “Trout Capital USA”.  While Roscoe (NY), Bend (OR), Asheville (NC) and Craig (MT) might argue with them, Cotter is definitely a contender.  Indeed, there are two rivers nearby with some of the most and biggest trout in the lower 48, the White and the Norfork (the North Fork of the White River).

We first fished the White River with Larry McNair, who is a retired teacher and head basketball coach at Cotter High.  The other guides referred to Larry as the “Godfather” of the White because of the number of times he’s fished and guided on it.   We put the boat in at the Rim Shoals access point and proceeded to go upstream just a bit, before fishing both sides of the island at the boat ramp.  Barb caught a nice brown and we both hooked into numerous nice sized rainbows.  Throughout the day we talked fishing and basketball which was right up my alley.  As the day progressed, we caught several more healthy browns and a bevy of rainbows.  The White River was really good to us on a cold, rainy day.

The next day, we went to try our hand on a section of the Norfork with another Dally’s guide, Gabe Levin.  It was only a small section due to conditions in Norfork Lake which were producing off-color water and very low flows below the dam on the river.  It really wasn’t an ideal time to fish the Norfork River, but it’s a TU Top 100 stream, so, we were obliged to wet a line and see what we could do.  On our first drift down, we both hooked into a couple of small rainbows before Barb landed a beautiful Fine Spotted Cutthroat….. gorgeous fish!  At this point, realizing we could fish this small stretch longer, or, we could head back to the White and fish a different section, we made a no brainer decision, bring on the White again!

Gabe took us to several different spots both up and downstream of the confluence of the Norfork and White Rivers, including Buffalo Shoals.  We stopped counting pretty quickly as to the numbers of fish we’d brought to the boat.  While we didn’t find any of the big browns, we did just fine seeing a variety of sizes of colorful rainbows.

We chatted with Gabe over lunch on the river as eagles soared and squawked above us.  We only saw a couple of boats upstream where we’d gone to fish and have lunch.  His “guide talk” is a “twofer” combining the White and Norfork, with pics from both days sprinkled in.   Please take a look at the video to understand fully why Cotter is “Trout Capital USA”.

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