Andrew didn’t like it, but I did!

This is what holds it all together – a giant dam in Norfork, AR that was built to help control flooding of the White River. The result of this dam is a giant reservoir that reaches depths close to 150 feet. Cold water flows through the bottom of the dam and pumps into the White River, creating a world class trout fishery in Arkansas. Its pretty amazing to think about it – the climate is on the warmer side, but because the river water is pulled from the bottom of the dam, the end result is a cold flowing river that is perfect for trout.

Above the dam is close to 58,000 acres of Norfork Lake. This was the destination for Days 1 and 2 of my trip to Arkansas. My friend Tim was kind enough to invite me to his family’s Arkansas home for the weekend, and I had an opportunity to chase after some quality fish.

After getting a few hours of sleep after a 10 hour car ride, Tim and I hit Norfork Lake. Clouds provided some coverage for the first half of the day, so Tim decided it would be best to take advantage of the conditions and target hybrids and stripers.

Our efforts were concentrated mostly off of points on this extremely deep body of water. I was simply amazed at the techniques used to chase and catch these fish. Tim set us both of with flukes in about 65 feet of water. The visibility was close to 30 feet – super clear water! Tim told me to keep my eyes and ears open for feeding fish crashing the surface. We followed schools of baitfish around, and it didn’t take the guide very long to hook into a fish and bring it in. With my netting assistance, Tim boated a hybrid that was probably around 5-6 lbs, but fought like it was a 15 lb fish.

That one fish was the only taker for the first half of the day, and soon the sun made its appearance from the clouds. We decided then to spend the second half chasing bass. The trifecta (spotted, largemouth, and smallmouth) species were our targets. We worked steep shelves with jigs and caught some fish. Nothing really huge, but the action was fairly consistent. I think Tim may have outbassed me 10 – 1 or so, but I had a ton of fun!

Here are a couple of pics of the finer fish -

As the sun set, we tried once again for stripers, but couldn’t really dial in on the moving schools of bait and get any fish to take. Well, there was an exception – this white bass nailed a stick bait and gave me a good jolt, but soon after the hookup I realized that this wasn’t one of those big momma stripers.

Day 2 began as a cold one. The air temp was around 40 degrees, but the water temp ranged from the low to mid 60s. This created a huge fog cloud as we launched shortly after sunrise and created some great photo opportunities.

Just as Day 1 started, we began Day 2 on the striper hunt. Again, we chased schools of bait and surface explosions. We both took a couple of solid hits, but failed to connect. We decided to take a fishing hiatus, and made a trip to a local food establishment for some Arkansas grub, then made a visit to a national trout hatchery which was pretty damn cool. 2 million trout are produced each year and pumped into the White River, providing the backbone to the local economy.

Part 2 of Day 2 was hunting for stripers once again. We were determined to land some big fish. Tim has had decent success from his past Arkansas outings, and he was confident that we would eventually get onto some fish.

Sure enough, he was right. After witnessing three huge stripers rise from the depths and plow through a school of baitfish, we both tossed our lines near the wake of the explosions. Tim hooked up immediately, and the fight was on! Hearing the drag scream reminded me of king salmon fishing (oh, how I miss kings..). After a 10 minute battle, he landed this awesome striper.

I soon took a hit on my fluke, and managed to connect! The fish fought like a tank, then shot straight down to the depths of the reservoir. Unfortunately, that one got away. After losing that fish, I was absolutely determined to land one of these beasts.

The sun fell behind the horizon, and we were fishing in the pitch black, Arkansas country setting. Every now and then we would hear an explosion, and we knew the fish were around, herding up the baitfish and destroying them.

Then it hit me, like a ton of bricks. The blow was so severe, I swear I felt the jolt travel through my body and out through my toes. After surviving the hit, and getting the fish buttoned up, the fight was on. I think the fish spent the first 30 seconds just sitting there, thrashing like mad. The headshakes were extremely violent. Each shake had me worried that it would rip the hooks free and peace out, but this one stayed connected.

The first run was intense. The drag screamed and I just simply held on. Tim told me to just let the fish run – I was at a point during the fight where this is all I could do.

After a good 10-15 minute battle, Tim got the net out and scooped up my catch. I was literally shaking for the next 15 minutes. My adrenaline was pumping like mad, and I was absolutely thrilled to have connected and landed a striper!

Now the question to ponder – which fights harder? A king or a striper? Its a VERY close call…

We continued to fish for another couple of hours, and both of us got bit pretty hard. In fact, one fish hit so hard it snapped my line on impact. I didn’t have a chance. Tim connected with a monster fish, and took us for a boat ride. Unfortunately, it came unbuttoned after running out a crap ton of line. Tim, who has caught stripers up to 40 lbs, said that was a really big one…

Day 3 was more of a relaxing trip. We decided to sleep a little later because of some morning rains, but once the precipitation cleared, we launched Tim’s boat on the world famous White River for a float trip. It was pretty cool absorbing the scenery of the White River while drifting down its winding path.

We ended up catching a bunch of rainbows, which was pretty fun on UL tackle. No big ones, but still a very enjoyable and memorable experience.

Since the smaller rainbows make excellent table fair, I brought some back with me for the smoker and for friends and family. My grandmother will be getting her share of fresh trout later this week

Now, I’m not quite the video pro like Andrew is, but I took a few movie clips during our trip. The fish hatchery was amazing, and seeing so many trout in one place is not something you see every day, so I took a couple of clips of that. I also managed to get a few fish on film (sorry, no stripers though…).

Once our float trip was over, I was back on the road to Chicago and to the real world. My trip had reached its conclusion.

Arkansas was a very memorable trip. I had a great time chasing fish we don’t see in Chicago. I would like to thank Tim again for being a great host and a fantastic guide. Thanks man!

On our way out from the river launch, we were able to locate Andrew’s boat. Hey Andrew, in case you were looking for ol’ Red, she’s down in Arkansas right now!

I miss Arkansas already