White River Arkansas Fishing Report

My winter started in early January with not much water in the White River but things can sure change quick in Northern Arkansas in the Winter months.  Its late March now and the steady high water around the clock continues making for decent streamer fishing.  Ended my stay with picking up my new TopWater Boat and had a great time fishing with an old friend for a few days.   Polly and I landed some nice Browns but you did have to work for them by keep on pounding the big streamers and hoping for that giant! Top streamers were Chromatic Peanut, Slop Mop, Viking Midge and Flanked Back Creature.  As for color white was very good  but brown/yellow produced also along with olive and rainbow colors. Here is some more photos from my boat this winter on the White River.  Really had a good Winter and already filling in calendar for the next winter starting right after New Years!  

Conditions on the White River are always changing!  Had a great night fishing for the first month of winter.  Some decent streamer action in February.  A killer week of Shad kills in February.  After some very heavy rains the last couple weeks the lake above Bull Shoals Dam has really been rising fast and gone up 6-7 feet.  Finally around the clock high power generation coming out of Bull Shoals Dam and been running around 16200 cfs.  This steady high water is ideal for strippin big streamers!  Hit the flooded grass and rocky drop offs now!  Stay out of the deepest water in the river.  Pound the banks with deep cover. Chris got this 28" Brown Trout a couple days ago in my boat and just so exciting seeing an angler hookup to trout of this size!  One of top producing streamers this winter got him - Slop Mop in white. Here is were some other good Browns streamer fishing the last couple with from my boat and guide Cody Griffen!  Viking Midge, double articulate Chromatic Peanuts, Skull Head double articulated Rainbow, Great Lakes Decievers    

The MFFC came down to Arkansas to fish the White River with us for the 6th year in row.  This was the best year for Brown Trout!  Reason why there was a excellent shad kill come thru Bull Shoals Dam.  This put Rainbows and Browns on the feed big time. Shad patterns fished down deep was key.  Shad Kills happen most often during the winter months during high water and this what we had last week.  I posted more photos on Facebook but here is few of trout the guys caught.

Here on the White River the fly angler hears about many different methods of catching big brown trout.  Streamer fishing, night time mousing, nymphing, worm patterns, shad kill and more.  All these do produce well at times but it depends on conditions.  Myself I tend to promote the strippin large streamers for a good shot at a big brown but if you show up at the river and water levels are very low or minimum flow your chance of this working are very slim.  Same for night time mousing if you show up with high power generation around the clock (like currently) your going to very disappointed in the mousing as its best in low flows.  Does this mean that mousing wont work in high flows and streamers wont work in low flows - well of course not but odds are it wont be good.   Conditions are ever changing on the White River and I have never seen a system that changes so fast.  It doesn't matter about yesterday around here as that is over!  Fish the conditions you are given with the best method for them and good Brown Trout will come.  The White River has some of highest…