I had not fished in two days and I was beginning to have withdrawal pains. I checked conditions and noted that the Norfork was off. The temperature was thirty but the Weather Channel assured me that the temperature would climb to thirty nine and there would be little wind and bountiful sunshine. I tried to tempt my wife, Lori, but she thought it was too cold. My yellow lab, Ellie had not recovered from the constant action of our last outing, so I decided to go by myself. I loaded my wader bag and rod case into my ancient Volvo and headed out.
When I arrived at the Ackerman access, I was surprised to see that mine was the only car there. I leisurely donned my waders and put my nine foot four weight fly rod together. I waded up stream and headed to one of my favorite spots. My rod was still rigged with a size eighteen zebra midge from my last fishing trip. I waded over to a nice run and began fishing. On the second cast I caught a small brook trout.
I immediately thought about the grand slam. The Arkansas grand slam is when you catch all four trout species that we have here, rainbow, brown, cutthroat, and brook trout, in one day. The rainbows are heavily stocked and pretty easy to come by. The browns are stocked in fewer numbers but they reproduce naturally which creates a significant population. The Cutthroats are lightly stocked and fairly hard to come by. The brooks are the least stocked and hardest to come by. While several of my clients have landed grand slams in the past year, it has been a while since I have had one. It seems that I catch the rainbow, brown, and cutt, but cannot seem to find a brook. Today, by starting with a brook, I thought I had a great chance at catching one.
I picked up a couple of rainbows but the action was light. I moved over to another run to try my luck. As I was walking in, I noticed that there were several trout rising and that a heavy midge hatch was beginning. I sat on the bank for a while and rerigged my rod. I clipped off my fly, untwisted my lead, clipped of my tippet and removed my strike indicator. I was left with a seven and a half foot 4X leader. To that, I tied on a four and one half foot 6X tippet and a Dan’s turkey tail emerger size eighteen.
This is my brother, Dan’s, signature fly. He designed it specifically for the Norfork River but has found it effective on the White and every where else he has tried it, from Montana to the Smokey Mountains. Dan has been tying them for me for twenty years and they are a staple of my fly box. A few weeks ago I decided to learn to tie them for myself. I went through my fly tying materials and located the items I needed. I sat down with the recipe from the Home Waters book and a fly Dan had tied. I took my time and knocked a few out. The next time I saw Dan I showed him the flies and asked him to critique them. He told me to make the wing a bit longer but that they looked pretty good. The fly I tied on was one of my ties.
I walked into the run until I was on the right hand edge of the current and faced down stream. I cast to the left at a forty five degree angle. As soon as the fly hit the water I stripped the line back to sink the fly in the film. As it swung in the current the water pressure against the fly line caused a belly to form in the line. Rather than mending the line upstream to achieve a drag free drift, I left the belly in the line. The increased water pressure on the fly helps set the hook when a trout hits the fly. I began picking up fish immediately. I caught several rainbows and then got into a pod of browns and landed several. I still needed a cutthroat. I kept working my way down stream and finally picked up a cutt. I had my grand slam!
I continued fishing down the run and landed several rainbows, browns and cutthroats in the process. I felt the strong take of a good fish. It hit my fly hard and immediately ran down stream taking a lot of fly line with it. I was almost in the backing when it made its first jump and I got my first glimpse of him. It was in incredibly fat, brightly colored, male rainbow that was at least eighteen inches long. I swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the job at hand. I was able to slowly work the fish closer and then he took another long run. About this time the rainbow took another head shaking leap into the air. In the process, the light 6X tippet broke and the bow was gone.
I cranked my line back in. I wasn’t disappointed. He had given me a thrill and I had really enjoyed the struggle. I pulled out my fly box and searched for another Dan’s turkey tail emerger. Alas, that had been my last one in size eighteen. Luckily I had several in size twenty two that Dan had tied. Would the smaller fly work as well as the eighteen? I carefully tied one on. With the smaller hook it was much harder to thread the 6X tippet through the hook eye. After several failed attempts, I cut the tippet at a 45 degree angle to create a point on the end of it and was then able to complete the knot. I pinched down the barb and returned to my fishing. On my first cast, I hooked and landed a nice brook trout. It was my second grand slam of the day!
John Berry
(870) 435-2169
[email protected]http://http://www.berrybrothersguides.com
