So DonnyB and I left at 5:00am with Rogers, Arkansas as our destination where we would meet up with Joey at his house. After arriving at Joey's, we grabbed our gear, threw it in the "Sub", and headed for for the river. We made our way down to the HWY 62 bridge, paid the $3.00 parking fee, and pulled into an empty parking lot. Brilliant! We geared up and started making our way downstream to an area that Joey had fished with his dad a few weeks prior and said it had fished awesome since both the tailwater and Table Rock Lake were very low. It had created a nice channel below a shoal with some big boulders along the way. Well, to our disappointment, the prior rain earlier in the week had brought the lake up and the area was completely full of water, no river channel. We chucked some streamers against the bank and along the boulders with only a couple of fish coming to the net. We packed up and headed back up river to fish closer to the bridge below another shoal.
We fished our way back up to the 1st shoal below the bride. We picked up several fish along the way, all of them super healthy, had all their fins, and very pretty. Must be all holdover fish from previous years stockings that have got in touch with their wild side. About this time, we ran into our good buddy, Corey Dodson, who had decided to meet us on the water. We continued our way to the top of the shoal and then made our way to the parking lot for some coffee and what was left of the chocolate muffins from breakfast.
After a quick fill up, we decided to hike upstream to explore the river as Joey didn't go upstream on his previous outing. We made our way to the old railroad bridge and tried our luck in the deep run above and below the bridge pillar. We managed a couple of hook ups but overall the fishing was pretty slow. Frustration was beginning to set in with everyone when DonnyB, Joey, and I hiked on upstream to where the river channel narrowed up and we actually stumbled upon a pretty sweet looking run. It was deep, slow movin at the bottom and then turned into a fairly swift run coming off a gravel bar at the top. I hiked up to the top of the run and crouched down on the gravel bar just above where the water dropped off into the main run. I began high stickin' the top of that run througly, picking up a handful of fish as the other guys worked their way up to meet me, picking up a few fish along the way as well. The day had made an upswing for us and spirits were back up on the river.
Joey and I hiked upstream to check out the water above the island but found nothing worth fishing so we headed back downstream to the bottom end of the shoal to start fishing our way back to the truck. We met back up with DonnyB and Corey where we spent some time fishing and taking some photographs of the river.
We began the hike back downstream towards the truck, leap-frogging from spot to spot, covering the better looking water as we went. We each picked up a few fish along the way but still, no big fish had came to the net. We were almost to the bottom of the narrow channel when Corey hooked up with what we thought was a "better fish". The better fish turned out to be a toad of a brown trout. Even crazier, the fish took a #20 zebra midge somehow. The fish fought kinda lazily, no big runs or anything...just kinda swam around, which we thought was odd. Corey finally got the fish turned and was able to pull it close enough to allow Joey to net it. It was an awesome fish, at first we thought its jaw was all tore up till we got the fish turned around to find a 6" sculpin hanging out of its mouth, half digested! No wonder it wasn't fighting very hard. The brown was easily 20-22" and FAT! Beautiful fish...
We decided to call it quits shortly after releasing that fish and head back to the car. There was some weather moving in and we wanted to get on the road before the weather got too bad.
The lower part of Beaver was a nice change of pace for a day-trip, plus its always a treat to fish new water. So far, 2011 has been a great year for fishing. Plans are being worked out as we speak for this weekends fishing adventure, where that will be is unknown. I think that might be half the fun...
Until next time, keep chasing the dream...
Pretty sweet! Love reading your blog!
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