That time of the year...

Time for the yearly flush of our smallie and trout streams...

Tuesday Tying: The Gurgler

To kick off this new weekly post, gonna start with a gurgler pattern that JoeyC ties for smallmouth and largemouth in our rivers and streams here in the Ozarks. Awesome topwater pattern...



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...

Hero or Zero....

I have said it before but the 1st fishing trip of the year is always a big deal to everyone involved. Its been a long winter with everyones attention being taken by other activites like waterfowl hunting, deer hunting, etc and everybody is just ready to get on the water and do some fishing. There is new gear to test out, new flies to fish, or just getting out there to feed the addiction.

Like last year, the CTD crew decided to head for the White River for the 1st trip of the year in hopes of hooking up with a big brown trout. Last year we had low water conditions which made it great for wading but the fishing was subpar. We finally got the fish dialed in on the last day but never could stick a pig. Well, this year, we had a whole new game plan. It was time to go big or go home. We put away the 5WTs, the 6X tippet, and the zebra midges in exchange for 8WTs, 2X tippet, and big nasty streamers.

We were going for broke. Time to be a hero or zero...

We fished hard for 2 days throwing big flies and sinking lines with near perfect streamer conditions. The river treated us pretty well I'd like to say. We didnt have an "epic" streamer trip in comparision to what some anglers had been pulling from the White, but what we got was a steady bite of solid 17"-21" browns with Coreys fish pushing 24" as the big fish of the trip. Couldnt of asked for a better trip...

Heroes or zeros?

I think the pictures say it all...

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

So it's been a year? Wow, we suck...

Well first off, I would like to apologize to what few followers we had for our lack of posts over the past year. Lack of motivation on my part as the "Editor-in-Chief" is who's mostly to blame. I am gonna try to resurrect the blog and keep it up to date to the best of my ability. All this blog reading I have done has provided me with much needed motivation to start posting again.

Lots of things have happened over the past year for the CTD crew. We have had several great trips as well as a few tough ones. We got to check out a few new fisheries this year and revisited some old favorites. The following post is just a summary of how CTDs year went....

First off, I made a very beneficial purchase to open up more options of fishing for us. I bought a drift boat. I had been kicking around buying one for a couple years but never could pull the trigger due to other things taking financial priority. Well, we were finally in a position to do it and I pulled the trigger. I picked up a 2008 Clackacraft Headhunter skiff from Clackacraft for a good price just under a year ago and have never looked back. Absolutely love my boat. Don't know why I waited so long to buy one. It opens up so many new avenues for fishing. No longer do we hope and pray that they don't generate water on the tailwaters so we can fish, now it doesn't matter what they do. We have been able to extend our range on other rivers that we were only able to wade before. Basically...its awesome.

As some of you know, we have a yearly tradition where we travel to the Current River to camp and fish the Blue Ribbon waters below the state park. Last year was our 3rd year which officially made it a "tradition" in our books. The fishing this year wasn't the best we ever experienced but we did stick a couple of good browns and we were able to do some headhunting (dry fly fishing) on Sunday afternoon as caddis started coming off. We had some great camp food as always and caught some fish. Plus it rained on us like always. The trip was a success...

Another place that is a normal haunt for the CTD crew that always keeps us on our toes and our fishing ego in check is Crane Creek. My 2nd favorite place to wade fish in MO behind the Current, hands down. Its a wild place that always presents a challenge to even the most seasoned fisherman. This spring we were able to get some redemption on Crane for Donny and Cole since their first Crane experience wasn't that great. We caught a ton of fish on both trips. I was able to finally break the 18" mark on both trips with two beautiful McClouds. All in all, our year on Crane was amazing.

In the past 2 years, CTD has began to really chase another prized game fish in the Ozarks. Some call it a brownie, bronzeback, or a smallie....whatever you wanna call it, the smallmouth bass has totally consumed the crew from April till September the past couple of years. They are just a bad ass fish to chase on the fly. We have had some great wade and float trips chasing them. We fished Elk River and Indian Creek numerous times this past year and have came to know these fisheries as our "homewaters" for smallies. We also did an overnight float trip on the Kings River in Arkansas in June that was a huge success. We covered 12 miles of some of the most pristine smallmouth water in the state, all the while avoiding snakes, drunks, crazy locals, and tornado like weather. It was awesome. As I'm writing this, we are all going crazy waiting for smallie season to really kick off.

Later in the summer, the CTD crew caught wind of some epic hopper fishing on the White River below Bull Shoals dam in Arkansas. In years past, we never really were able to take advantage of this due to the generation patterns for that time of year which is basically 24/7 heavy generation which means you need a boat. Well, with the addition of the drift boat, we decided to give the hopper bite a shot on the White this year in hopes of catching some big browns on big foam nasties! Needless to say, it was a big learning curve for us as the White River under 15k-20k CFS is a totally different river than at low water which was all we were familiar with. The first trip was sub par at best with just a few fish to hand as well as blistering July temps that made it miserable to fish. We took several trips to the White to chase fish on hoppers and each time we learned more about the river so in turn, the fishing was better. I cant freaking wait for hopper season to start back up....

The rest of the CTD crew also made the pilgrimage to the Current River in the fall which is also about to become a tradition for us. They made it a 3 day trip this year which allowed them to cover more water in the lower stretches of the Blue Ribbon water. Fishing was decent but the time around the campfire was nothing short of epic from what I was told. Some mullet wigs were involved in a few shenanigans along with the normal BS being thrown around the campfire. A good trip indeed...

All in all, the CTD crew had a pretty damn good year as far as fishing goes. We have already taken a few great trips so far this year that I plan to write about in the coming days. We were able to put some big fish in the drift boats, catch some nice wild rainbows in new waters, and have really set the stage to have an epic year of fishing. We will see how it plays out....

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

Work is seriously effecting my fishing...

So I'm stuck in Dallas for the next two weeks to do some training for work. Can you tell where my mind is at? Here are my notes for today's class...




Crik

Epic...

It doesnt happen very often but sometimes, just sometimes, everything in the cosmos align for fisherman where you have one of those days that just makes you shake your head and say "Wow...that was stupid awesome fishing." Epic days mean a lot of different things to a lot of different fisherman, just depending on the situation. We had one of those epic days a couple weeks ago on the Lower Illinois tailwater, which is what we like to call our home water. Now the LIR is not a "tough" or "technical" fishery by no means and its not the level of tailwater that you find on Taneycomo or the White. The fish are generally easy to find and catch, in good numbers too. Size of these fish are your everyday run of the mill stocker rainbows, not too many big fish in the river. All things considered though, the LIR exceeded our normal expectations and really shined that day for us...

The day started off as normal as could be, I meet the boys at Wal-Mart for normal pickup and deployment to our local trout water. We decided to start at T&M in hopes of finding a little solitude and maybe some bigger fish. We geared up and started the hike downstream to some of our favorite stretches of the river. We each stopped at our normal spots to begin the day. I made my way down to the upper part of the Car Body Hole where I started the day by stripping streamers just for a change of pace. Upstream of me was DonnyB who had started with an indicator rig with the ever faithful pheasant tail. It didnt take long for DonnyB to start hooking up with fish after fish after fish. I was also having good luck on my streamer bite as the fish were thumping it hard! The day was looking promising...




The day was turning out to be awesome as we worked our way down the Car Body Hole, picking up fish along the way with DonnyB slayin' them on the pheasant tail and the streamers still whackin' some fish for me. Upstream from us, I could see Cole also had a bend in his rod just about everytime I looked up to his location. It was about mid-morning when I noticed that lots of fish were rising up and down the river, hmmm, this could be interesting! After I stopped fishing to observe a pod of fish rising on a shoal at the bottom of Car Body, my worst fears revealed themselves as the fish were sipping midges in the surface film. Perfect. I nipped off my 2X tippet, went to 7X, and began sifting through my fly box for a suitable imitation.

On a side note, during the morning, DonnyB had picked up a couple of small browns. All of them being 4-6", very pale in color with faint red spots which made me guess them to be some recent fingerling stockers the state had put into the river. Hopefully these little guys take off and we start to develop a decent brown trout fishery on the LIR.




As the fish continued to rise, I started picking through my box, throwing various midge patterns and griffiths gnats in sizes 18-22 with hit and miss success. I'd get a couple of rises and hookups, then nothing for several casts. DonnyB fished his way past me and headed to another deep hole below me where he continued to whack fish on the ol' pheasant tail. Along this time, Cole and Crik made their way downstream where we all posted up on run with several pods of rising fish. I was standing there mumbling something about wishing I had a tiny indicator so I could throw some midge emerger patterns in the film when Cole said "Dude, why dont you just tie on a larger dry and use it as an indicator?" Eureka!! Why this idea had slipped my mind, I dont know but I was sure glad Cole was standing there. We all rigged up this way with each of us using different dropper patterns and you could say the day had been saved. The rest of the morning spent picking up fish about 50/50 on the dry and the dropper, with Cole really rippin' some trout lips on the pheasant tail. He finished out the run with this sweet rainbow that put up an awesome fight. Best trout for Cole to date...





We finished up the morning with plenty of trout to our nets and headed into town to the local choke and puke to get our normal lunch time meal of Chesters Chicken Snack Meal! Best broaster chicken and potato wedges ever. Top it off with some kind of "all-natural" sweet tea and we were all miserable, ready for a nap.

We decided to end the day by going way downstream to do a little exploring for some new water, both for trout and striper. We split up with DonnyB and I heading upstream while Cole and Crik went downstream. We didnt have much luck in the trout department but we did find some striper water to try out once the fabled "Oklahoma Chrome" begins their epic run up the LIR. That is one event that I cant wait for...

We packed it in and pointed the truck for home shortly before dark with a great day of fishing behind us. It was by far the best day we have had as a group on the Lower Illinois tailwater. Cant beat having epic days of fishing on the water, especially when its on your home waters...

Until next time, keep chasing the dream...