Been enjoying Northern Arkansas and the White River the past week! Typical roller coaster weather this time of year and was pushing 80 degrees last week a couple days. Cold nights of late but just some beautiful day time temps for fishing of late. This region has been very dry the last few months and overall water flows are low. Of late been sticking with 1 generator and no min flow around the clock. There are some morning when they turn up the power generation. Yesterday 2-3 generators came running flows of 6k CFS to 8.5k CFS at Bull Shoals Dam. Norfork Dam when full generations for the morning! With water coming up quick made for excellent streamer fishing with lots of water to follow. I was out solo streamer fishing and had a couple different excellent bite windows. I switched back and forth from a 9’ 7wt with Airflo Streamer Max Short 8wt 300 grain sink tip fly line. Just ideal when not having to get super deep and medium size streamers – Great Lakes Deceiver, Chromatic Peanut, Viking Midge and Slop Mop were all getting chases and follows. Rainbow imitations in 6-7” size and color was Rainbow or Chartreuse.
My other setup I used was 9’ 9wt with a Airflo Shovel Head 330 grain streamer fly line. This setup casting the big stuff very easy and gets down. Articulated Great Lakes Deceivers, Glow White, Skull Head Rainbows, Sluggo.
On days without spikes of water the time to focus on is low light periods. First thing in the morning at crack of dawn. My favorite is the last hour in the evening and keep on strippin streamers well into darkness. I have started using the Airflo Snipper 4 Season floating fly line for this low water flow time and it’s so reliable for some aggressive eats. My 6” articulated deceiver with helmet and sparsely tied is ideal to fish on a float line at dark!
During some day time conditions with low water flows the strippin streamers can be a rough ways to go to catch a trout. Got modify the setup – floating line on a 5wt. Little jig streamers of all sizes. Trout eat minnows and love them dead drifted. Worm patterns, mop flies, egg patterns and nymphs sure all work also on the White River. A couple days ago I fished with local guide Hunter Dismore and we had a great time fishing the small stuff and landed some nice browns and lots of rainbows!
When water flows are low one of the best ways to hunt for Big Browns on the White River is to wait for darkness! Nighttime streamers do produce but once it’s completely dark I like to go top water and slow swing or slow strip a mouse pattern. The past week here the night bite has been very good. My go to setup is a 9’ 8wt Winston Air 2 Max with a Airflo Sniper float line. Your covering water on the White River and a setup that you can cast distance with little effort is killer. Here is my first night in Arkansas and it took about 15 minutes!
Here is a mouse eater from last week. My favorite pattern is the Yewchuck Emperior Glow Mouse.
