| For six years, my good friend and fishing buddy, Eric Thomas, has told me about the North Fork of the White River. He told me repeatedly about the chance to catch wild rainbows and browns, and the chance to see a river that rivaled some of the Colorado rivers I've fished. |
Eric Thomas and Doug Catloth
|
As we set out on recent Missouri trips, we'd say "Let's go fish the Norfork", but for some reason or another we always ended up fishing
Lake Taneycomo and/or Crane Creek.
Finally, in August of 2002, we made it to the North Fork and it was well worth the wait.
August 6th was a hot, humid day with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. The chance turned into
reality when around two o'clock some high winds, heavy rain and lightning blew in. We set out at 6 AM as Myron took us and a canoe upstream from the ROLF. He recommended we paddle upstream to fish a couple specific runs and riffles. The plan was to fish the upstream sections for a while then work our way back down to the ROLF, grab a bite for lunch then continue downstream for an all-day trip. The fishing was so good, we spent six hours upstream.
The most successful flies were weighted egg patterns, size 10 bead-head prince, large (size 12 and 14) scuds and red San Juan worms. All were fished deep with 4X or 5X tippet. I had good success with upstream casts and big strips to pick up slack as the indicator floated to me.
We landed some good-size rainbows in the fast, deep runs but the shallow tail-outs produced also. All told we caught and released around thirty fish with one slightly over 19", two around 17", and five others in the 15-16" range. I was extremely impressed with the pulling power of these wild rainbows as well as the beautiful copper colored backs and bright pink fins. If you've only caught hatchery fish in your
career, you really don't know what your missing.
The next day (the 7th) was bright, sunny and cooler with much lower humidity. The fishing was not as good as the previous day, but we still landed around 16 fish in seven hours of fishing.
The North Fork was worth the wait, but I hope I get there again soon. Thanks Myron.
Sincerely, Doug Catloth
|
