What a past month we have seen. One day cold wet and miserable, other cold and with high winds, and in between this perfect days with water levels from low to as much as full bore 8 on the White and two on the Norfork. It goes without saying that the fish have also been up and down. Some days the fishing has been as good as you would get and on others they have been real slow. Overall the fishing has been real good.

We are still having shad runs. This past week produced some great fishing at Bull Shoals dam on water levels from 3 to 8 units. I saw many fish come to my boat from around 17 to 18 inches and a number of fish way above that. Best Bow around 6lb. Also many good Brookies showed up at this time. Many methods working from fishing white jigs to floating shad patterns. In between fish hitting shad flies, fishing small scuds, sows and other nymphs produced a great many good fish. How much longer we will see shad largely depends on the water flows. If we have high water then the odds are we will still see a few shad show up. Either way the fish will still be looking for a while for shad so it may pay to fish some imitations here. If you have no interest it may well be that your fly is not the right one or you are not fishing it the way the fish want to see it. If none of that change around produces then revert back to nymph fishing tactics which will nearly always produce fish here at any water level. Unless they are really off feeding at that time.

So far as the caddis hatches are concerned. Some days they have been very moderate other days like confetti. Some of the days l have seen the best emergences, have also been days with high winds which lesson the surface activity of feeding fish, That is simply due the fact that the caddis are windblown so fast off the surface the fish have little time to nab them. But you can be assured that they will be feeding on ascending pupa. You will also find that the emergences will be greater or lesser depending on the location you are at that time on the river.

High winds also create for you more problems with drift control, you may not think that it makes a great deal of difference to how the fish will take your fly but it really does. If you are fishing with dry line techniques, dry or emerger patterns you need to concentrate on how your fly line is affecting the drift speed of your fly, you will have to keep track of what is going on. A bad downstream wind will of course move both fly and fly line and too fast and a bad upstream wind will retard natural drift. In both cases l will use very long leader/tipett sections, up to 15ft at times, ideally l want the fly to have as much natural movement as possible and not be affected by the fly lines influence which it will be if you use the standard 9 ft leader set up.

The caddis species we have at this time vary size wise and it is not that important to match the hatch, anything size wise from 12 to 16 will work fine for both dry and emergers and soft hackles. The only thing l will say is that there are times that the color of your caddis pupa has to be right, many of these exhibit a very definite shade of green. The closest way l can describe that to you is it is very much like a chartreuse. I have many times in the past known fish to become picky. The favored fly pattern of mine is the SLF translucent caddis emerger. The body color is Tied with SLF standard shade dubbing of no 3 insect green or 46 Fl lime green. You can locate this fly pattern in FLY TYER summer issue 2000.

If water conditions are generally clear then the standard indicator rigs using many flies such as hares ear, soft hackles, Pheasant tails, scuds and sows will work most of the time if you get depth and drift control in order. We are still having at this time some good midge hatches both on the White and Norfork rivers, here small midge emergers in the size range of 18 to 24 in black, olive and gray will do the trick. Presentations need to be drag free and the depth you fish your fly are the two main keys to success here.

As of now the climate is warming up and l would expect to see many of the better Browns start to feed well later on in the day, evening and into the dark period if the temps do not drop too much. Wooly buggers and streamers will do the trick but so too will small flies fished with dry line techniques.

Overall we are looking toward warmer days and good fish feeding activity.

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.