John Berry
(870) 435-2169
www.berrybrothersguides.comGOLDEN TROUT
Last week I took Phil and three of his old college buddies fishing at Rim Shoals. Phil has a cabin on the Norfork and he brought his riverboat. The idea was to take the guys out and switch them around between Phil’s boat and mine so that they could get a couple of different takes on fishing the White River. They had fished the Norfork on the previous day and done well.
The day was near perfect. Though we had a cool start (fifty degrees when I left the house) the high was to be around seventy one that day. We had light winds in the morning and ten to fifteen mile per hour winds in the afternoon. There was light generation, around 3,500 cubic feet per second, that held steady all day.
We began the day with Monte and Paul in my boat. They were fairly inexperienced but enthusiastic. Monte was into fish almost immediately. Paul struggled on the first drift but boated five trout on the second. He was beginning to get the feel of it. The morning went well and we caught stacks of trout.
The guys saw something bright in the water and both sight cast to it. On his second attempt, Paul hooked it. As he brought it to the net, I got my first look at it. It was like no fish I had ever seen. Its back was a bright yellow and its belly was snow white. There was a garish pink stripe down its center. Though it was a rainbow, it looked more like something that belonged in an aquarium.
So, this was one of the golden trout that I had heard so much about from other guides and anglers. The day before I had received an email from Jeff Williams, the trout program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. He said that the Commission had purchased some trout from a commercial hatchery in Missouri to make up for a shortfall in trout stocking due to high water this year and last. The trout were rainbows but had a color variation. He went on to say that they were safe to eat and subject to the same regulations as normal rainbow trout. Slightly less than 1,000 had been stocked in the White River between Bull Shoals Dam and Buffalo City.
We were intrigued with the fish and surmised that they would not last long because they were so visible and easy to target. I figured they would end up as Heron or Eagle food.
We finished the morning and did well. We broke early for lunch because the guys were hungry. I set up lunch on a picnic table near the river and we sat and chatted for a while. After lunch, Paul went with Phil in his boat and Todd joined Monte and me in my Shawnee.
The wind had picked up a bit and the catch slowed. We were drifting near Rim Shoals Trout Dock when Monte hit a good fish. I had been in the front of the boat netting a nice rainbow for Todd and got a good look at the trout. It was a fat broad shouldered rainbow that went a little over twenty inches long. I told him to fight it on the reel. He had stripped it in a few feet and the trout was fairly close to the boat. I knew he was not nearly ready to net and would soon make a run.
Monte said that he was not sure how to get the line on the reel without losing the fish. I decided it would be more expedient to help him get the line on the reel than talk him through it. I reached over and wound in the slack line on the reel and instructed Monte to let go of the line. I pride myself in being a teaching guide and this is not my usual method. I thought it was more important in this situation, to land a great fish. I did take a few minutes after the struggle was over to show Monte how to get all of the line on the reel while maintaining pressure on the fish. The rainbow was now on the reel and immediately took a run downstream.
The struggle went on for a few minutes. After several good runs, the rainbow finally surrendered to the net. Monte had done a great job fighting him. It turned out to be the largest trout he had ever landed and he ended up with bragging rights for the big fish of the day. Todd got Monte’s camera and took a nice photo of him with his rainbow. I unhooked the trout and carefully released it into the river. We all watched it slowly swim away.
We returned to our drift and continued fishing. Though the catch had slowed, we continued to catch some nice fish. We got several glimpses of the golden trout and we even got a take but we were unable to land him. The action had been pretty heavy and the guys were starting to run out of gas. We reluctantly decided to pull the plug and head for the ramp. Phil and Paul had come to the same conclusion and met us there.
We pulled the boats out of the water and said our good byes. It had been a good day with a few surprises, a trophy trout and a rainbow like I had never seen before.
ASK JOHN
I am going to start a new feature for my Fishing Report newsletter, ASK JOHN. If any of you have a question about the White or Norfork Rivers or anything about fly fishing in general, please send me your questions and I will answer them in the next Fishing Report.
John Berry
(870) 435-2169
www.berrybrothersguides.com
