Return to the NFOW

Several years ago just before I graduated college, I was in the process of getting back into fly fishing. During high school and most of college, fishing took a backseat to baseball, girls, racing, and just basically getting my life in order. Well, I had decided it was time to start fishing again and, in the process, I got my buddy Derek into the sport as well. We decided to take a fishing trip to Missouri and do a guided float trip with Brian Wise of River of Life on the North Fork of the White River (NFOW). I feel in love with this river on this trip and vowed to return ASAP. Well it took me 5 years to get back but we finally returned to the NFOW a few weeks ago. It was amazing. This is the story...

The CTD crew and I had made plans to return to the White in hopes of chasing the streamer bite once again but mother nature had other plans. Blue bird skies were in the forecast instead of the preferred overcast skies which normally doesn't make for good streamer fishing. A change in plans resulted in the trucks and drift boats being pointed north out of Mountain Home in the direction of the NFOW. The general plan was for Chris, Joey, and myself to fish the upper sections of the blue ribbon water from Kelly to Blair Bridge and Corey, Bill, and Cody to fish the lower sections of the blue ribbon into the red ribbon from Blair Bridge to James Bridge. We launched the boats, ran the necessary shuttles, and set off in search of wild rainbows and trophy browns....

Needless to say, the fishing was amazing. We didnt do anything special except chuck a bobber with an egg dropped off a big nasty pat's rubber legs but that did the trick. We stuck a bunch of cookie cutter NFOW rainbows along with a handful of 14"-16" fish and a couple of NICE 18" wild NFOW rainbows. Another highlight of the trip was getting to take my drift boat down "The Falls" at the River of Life Farm stretch of the river. Its not like they are a serious set of rapids but there r some massive boulders that could do some serious damage to a drift boat. It was really freaking sweet....

The maiden voyage down the falls!

The rest of the crew went for the big bite downstream and spent most of the day throwing streamers. The bite was a little slow with the weather conditions for the day but they got some good follows and a stuck a few smaller browns. They also picked up a few fish swingin' RFSNs in the riffles when they were wading particular spots. Lots of quality water downstream...we will hit that section again...

All in all, it was a great day on the water with great friends. Everyone caught their fair share of wild rainbows although we were bummed that we didn't put any browns in the boat. The ride has come full circle with my return to the NFOW. Looking forward to see what the year brings us...

On a side note, we fished the White on Sunday in hopes of getting on the caddis hatch and doing some dry fly fishing. Well, it didn't happen. The wind basically blew us off the river. It was miserable but we caught a few fish before we tucked tail and headed home. That's all I got to say about that...

Until next time...keep chasing the dream...