Fly Fishing Report – The First of 2021

The Fly Shop

A lot has changed in the little world of Fly’s and Guides.  We have relocated permantly to the State of Arkansas. The Fly Shop is located on River Road in-between the State Park below Bull Shoals Dam and Gaston’s Resort. 

We have focused our guiding to the tailwaters of the White and Norfork and with that has allowed us a great opportunity to share the ideas, areas, and fishing techniques with the customers that come into the shop to get the latest fishing advice before they head out to the river. 

Flies and flies and flies.  If there is one thing that shocks every individual that walks through the door it’s the sheer quantity and variety of flies, we have available. 

We have several rods and reels from GLoomis, TFO, Douglas, Lamson, and Galvan.  Airflow, Wulff, and RIO lines, Hareline tying materials, Smith Optics, and all the items from the website available in the shop. 

If we don’t have what you are looking for, we can guarantee we will do our best to have it in the near future.  It has been great hearing the locals praise us on opening a true fly shop on this side of the upper stretch of river and being able to give a something back to an area that has done so much for us.

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Caddis, Caddis, Caddis

We have all heard that the Caddis bite on the White River is one of the most epic times of the year.  The end of April and the month of May always gets a bit crazy on the booking calendar.

If you are an angler that wants to fish subsurface or you want to experience a great dry fly bite, caddis time is hard to beat.We had some great flows the month of May that gave wade fisherman a perfect opportunity to land some quality brown trout right off the banks of Copper John’s Resort.

Gentle increases in generation kept the fish in feeding zones that in turn gave some wonderful dry fly opportunities later in the afternoons.

Great weather, lower flows, abundance of bug life…. May was a fly fisherman’s paradise this year and we just didn’t know if it could get any better.

Sulpher Sippen

Then we came the Month of July and what a month it has been.  The Sulpher hatch has been insane and by choosing that wording I feel like I am not giving the bite enough credit. 

I thoroughly enjoy talking with the locals, from guides, residents who live along the river, workers in businesses in the area that live and breathe Fly fishing.  They all say, it’s the most bug life they have seen in years.  The planets are aligning as far as water quality goes and with that has brought us the most epic dry fly bite we have ever got to experience. 

Honestly Jeremy and I, can’t get enough of it.  Whether we have a trip or we have a day off.  It’s just hard to not go out every evening.  Browns on Dries will never get old and having the opportunity to stay on the bite for several weeks knowing the end is near keeps us going out for more despite these 100 degrees temps. 

So, keep July on your radar next year for another great bite on the White River. 

From the Field

 

This might be a photo overload but since we haven’t put a single report up since moving to Arkansas.  We have a few.  

I know we will miss several from early in the Spring, but I hope that I can find at least the highlights of the anglers that have come in the shop for flies, shop rats that frequent the doors quite often in the last couple of months, client photos, and others that have been willing to send a few photos of their time out on the river using our flies.  

As many may know with relocation will also come a new website.  Jeremy is doing his best to get things converted over and we will be slowly adding the products that we have available in the shop to purchase through the online shopping cart.  It will take some time, we do still guide, and have a shop to add to our responsibilities but without a doubt it will get done.