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Our trip to the North Fork of the White River at River of Life Farm started off rather ominous with heavy rain, a flat tire on our travel trailer and minor problem with my wife Pat’s left eye. I finally got to wet a line on Saturday afternoon. Myron and Ann McKee the ROLF proprietors took my wife with them on a short raft float on the river while I hit the stream at the "Falls". By the time the raft passed The Falls I had landed four of the iridescent wild rainbows of the North Fork. Two of the feisty little bows fell to Myron’s black rubber legs and two to my favorite lure, a weighted egg pattern. A short trip down stream toward Jack’s riffle produce a small brightly colored brown trout.
Jack’s Riffle consists of several chutes of slack water just out of the strong current, which looked like they should hold fish. I plied those waters with five or six different nymphs without success. I was in the process of changing to my favorite egg pattern when Pat and young Benjamin McKee appeared on the bank behind me. I answered Ben’s question about my success at the riffle in the negative but that I had just put on my secret weapon. He looked at me with skepticism until I landed a nice thirteen-inch rainbow on my first cast. My next five casts netted four more bows between ten and fourteen inches. Ben’s eyes were getting bigger by the minute. I could tell he was not used to seeing this kind of luck. I guess maybe I work better with an audience because I caught eight or nine trout in about fifteen minutes under the watchful eyes of the youngster. When he asked to see the secret weapon a little closer, I gave him five of the lures and told him not to tell the secret to his father. He dashed off to get his fly rod but I didn’t see him anymore that evening. I caught only one more trout after he left. Myron and I had a chuckle later as we discussed his reaction.
The rain we drove through on the way to ROLF brought a slight color to the river and seemed to turn the fish on a little. The next day Pat and I waded down stream to the Cave Riffle. A few small rainbows and browns fell to various lures. When we reached the deep hole above Cave riffle, I let Pat cast to the head of the pool while I moved about midway in the hole and drifted the secret weapon near the south bank. I knew when I set the hook on the strike that this was no little rainbow. The fish stripped line from the reel and made the drag sing. Pat came down to watch and after about five minutes I led the hefty, sixteen inch German brown to the net. After a few seconds of "admiration time" I slipped him back into the water.
We worked the rest of the pool and the Cave riffle catching three small rainbows before heading back upstream. Pat moved ahead of me to fish the part of the pool where the brown had succumbed to the secret weapon. I had changed to a black rubber legs and fished above Pat at the head of the hole. I felt the strike before I saw it and again had the thrill of fighting a heavy fish. This old boy gave a good account of himself and as I got him near to the net I thought I had caught the same fish again. However, the tape showed him to be over seventeen inches and quite a bit larger in girth. I was lamenting my failure to bring the camera from the car when he flipped out of the net and back to his lair.
Against my better judgment, a stop by our vehicle put the camera in my vest and I was sure it would but an end to my good luck.
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I was interested to see if Jack’s riffle would produce the rainbows like it did the evening before. We stealthily approached the riffle and I dropped the secret weapon (a tri-color weighted egg pattern) into the still water just a couple of feet from the water grass on the bank. |
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The vicious strike was familiar and when I lifted the rod I felt the weight of another good fish. He took me directly into the riffle and the current gave him Superfish strength. I would not expect the six X tippet I was using to stand much of that pounding, so I gave him his head and played him very lightly. He finally let me lead him back into shallow water and the net. The Lord had blessed me with my third sixteen-inch plus brown trout of the day. This was as fine an experience as any flyfisherman could dream of. |
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The rest of the day and the next day produced a few small brightly colored rainbows, browns and the serenity that comes with River of Life Farm. I enjoy trout fishing anywhere. I am thankful that the state of Missouri gives us the opportunity to catch trout at the trout parks. However, if you want some peace and quiet for a change and you have never caught a truly wild trout, you should visit Myron and Ann. Their hospitality is top notch and you could have a day like I had on the North Fork. By the way, for those who have not figured out my secret weapon, the trout park vendors call them "glow balls". I won’t give you the colors but I can say that they work as well on wild trout as they do in the trout parks. It doesn’t pay to be too much of a purist
Tim
Schwent |
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