Unfortunately l am not able to report anything new so far as lower water flows at this time. The powers that be did give us some benefit for the weekend that we held the Hooked on a Cure event, and we thank them for that. Over all the fishing that we had that weekend was pretty good and a number of class fish were caught

This event is to raise funds for the St Judes Childrens hospital. Many fly fishing personalities gave of their time for free as well as guides and all others who participated in this very worthwhile cause.

So far as fishing is concerned then, more or less stick to that l have said in the June report and you will not go far wrong.

Night fishing is hit and miss to some extent, if you are on the water before the heavy mist sets in then you may do ok, but my experience is when it does it is not that good, fish have to see your fly and against a background of fog they are not able to. When the darkness sets in, more to the point if you are on the river boat fishing, it is not a good time to get caught some distance from your take out point. No matter how well you know a water you can become totally disoriented at such times, believe me l know l have done it, and l also know some guys who did not find the ramp till the early hours of the next morning, it can be a very dangerous to say the least for personal safety and for a rescue crew if they are sent out to find you.

Last month l reported the incidence of a ugly kind of moss/ algae that had became evident in the river. My first suspicion was that the underlying cause was due to contamination from raw sewage into the river system. Some guides had indicated that it looked like toilet paper. Myself and a biologist checked this out and l am happy to report that it is not caused by sewage contamination. It is form of algae known to exist in tail waters. It is not detrimental to invertebrate life forms and in fact does, provide both habitat and food sources to living organisms.

On the aspect of boat safety, already the river has claimed lives and l know of a number of other circumstances that came very close to that.

Recently Garry Flippin at Rim Shoals rented a boat to some customers, in a attempt to slow the boat down they threw the anchor over the front of the boat, in high water, you guessed it, the anchor stuck and in a instant the boat was pulled down and sunk. They were very lucky individuals. Never ever do this, and even if you use a drag chain be sure you know what you are doing or at least have some means for it to break away if it does gets fast, a $3.00 piece of chain is not worth your life or some other person in your boat.

At the recent Hooked on a Cure weekend again a near disaster took place at Shoestring shoals. A father and his young son had their boat turnover and capsize, here again another angler was close by and was able to rescue the pair, thank God the young man was wearing a buoyancy aid. A number of us tried to free the boat, no go but we did manage to recover the engine.

Some weeks back while l was at Buffalo shoals, a boat had become stuck against rocks due to the force of water against it, no way were the anglers going to move that boat without some assistance, here again they were lucky, that boat was very close to sinking, fortunately we were able to get the guys out of the mess they were in.

If you either rent boats or are not familiar with such a force of water take great care, keep a continual eye open for structure that is down stream from you, when drifting, and avoid drifting close to shorelines. Do not anchor unless you are very sure that is safe to do so, and certainly do not do so with the boat broadside onto the current flow, again unless you are very sure it is safe to do so, mainly do so in the slower back water zones and eddys.

Both Bull and Norfork lakes are providing good fly fishing for bass and sunfishes early morning and late evening times, both with top water tactics and deep water fishing around shore lines and known structure. Now we have some real hot weather days the Buffalo will pick up real well for smallmouth and sunfishes. On a recent trip we had a great day of fishing for smallmouth using well weighted flies right on the bottom, both crawdad and clousers fished with both dry and intermediate lines, fished slow to med fast. The trick is to keep the fly down at the fishes eye level.

If you take a liking to hooking up gar fish then right now they are taking small pin fry around ½ to 1 inch in length. You will need some small imitations of this and be able to sight fish the gar when you see them, on the surface feeding. One trick here is to add a tail of about 1 inch of either red or white poly yarn. It is hard to set a hook into the mouth of a gar, if they hit your fly the odds are that the yarn will become entangled in the needle teeth and hold the fish real well.

Tight lines for now,
Davy Wotton

About Davy Wotton
Davy has been making his living as a full time fly fisher in one capacity or another for over 30 years. He has written many articles for all of the fly fishing magazines, created several unique flies and fly tying materials which he developed into a full scale manufacturing operation in his native country of Wales, and is a much-sought speaker around America at fly fishing functions and shows. Over the years Davy has fished in over 40 countries around the world but his choice for base of operation is right here on the White River. Davy operates his American International Schools of Fly Fishing in Flippin, Arkansas.