Norfork River, AR

TIME: 1:30 PM TO 5:00 PM
WEATHER: Partly cloudy, Mid-50s
WATER CONDITIONS: 0 units
LOCATIONS FISHED: Norfork River, upstream of Ackerman Walk-in Access
ROD USED: Winston LT 8'6" 5 wt
FLIES USED: #14 Tan Norfork River Scud
HATCHES: Midges
OTHER: Fished with Ron. We decided to walk upstream to McClellan’s, fishing our way there and back. We didn’t pick up many fish until we reached the foot of the island below McClellan’s. It was crowded, but Ron found a tiny riffle below a downed root wad and began catching fish immediately. He caught about 8 fish, and we decided to move upstream. Interestingly, one of the fishers near us was a “runner” and hurriedly reeled in and almost ran ahead of us to the next riffle. We took our time and when we began passing the place he was fishing, he quickly reeled in and almost ran to the next riffle. We finally passed him and made our way to the channel across from Otter Creek. Both Ron and I had a couple of bites, but no fish. We moved downstream to Ed’s hole, fishing it pretty hard, but no bites at all, whereas the week before, Joe and I caught several fish there. As we began walking downstream our “runner” reeled in again and began trotting downstream to an area we wanted to fish. He did that the entire afternoon. We finally made our way back to the foot of the island, and began catching lots of fish, where 3 hours earlier we couldn’t buy a bite. We fished our way home and had a great time. Neither of us caught any big fish, and neither of us caught a brownie, catching mostly rainbows with a few cutthroats thrown in.

PS: As an aside, Ron fished on Saturday, December 20, 2008, and caught lots of fish, virtually every cast. He fished near the “runner” again and had the same thing happen to him that happened to us the previous afternoon.