Streamer Fishing the White River
A recent trip this spring to the White River in AR produced a trip will lasting memories, lessons learned, and an appreciation of being versatile. I did my homework calling shops and guides for suggestions on tackle and tactics that work on the White River. The White is a large tailwater that holds the world record for brown trout at 44lb. I went there for two reasons, big trout and to meet my son on his spring break.
The river flows from the Bull Shoals Dam, a large reservoir in northern Arkansas. I was impressed with the flow. It was over 100 yards wide, deep, but clear. Most of the time, large rivers tend to be muddy. Not the White, it was clear, fast, and deep. The section below the dam was blue ribbon catch and release. After speaking with some local guides, the challenge was timing. You had to fish the rising water, and that depended on when the dam released water. Some days that were extremely early.
On the second day on the White, our timing was good. We were able to launch on the rising water. Most guides were buzzing upriver and nymphing down in river boats with outboard motors. We were in my raft, drifting downstream. I had Ben and his roommate nymphing close to the bank, where the guides told me to fish. After going fishless for a long while, chaos erupted on the raft with one of the anglers hooked into a big fish. I tried to drop anchor, then spun around to see the fish. It was the largest brown I have ever seen. However, that was all I was to see of the fish, it quickly jetted into the main flow and broke 3x tippet.
The next day was a different story. The water was dropping since the dam released at 1 am. We launched anyway knowing this was our last day here. My son was casting streamers to the bank. It was producing fish, just smaller trout. Late that morning my son was weary of casting and offered to row. I tied on a Dahlberg Diver, a 4" long streamer designed to be pulled under and then float back up. This one was all white with a long rabbit tail.
After casting towards the bank for a while I began to think about the situation. All the guides had said to cast to the bank, but that was on the rising water. Now the water was dropping. There are two shelves or drop-offs on a river. The first is up by the bank. The second shelf is near the main current. When water drops, fish head to deeper water or the second shelf. I decided to cast across the main flow to cover both shelves. The challenge here was two-fold, getting deep and a long cast.
Divers are designed to dive when stripped and then slowly float up. This action produces large fish, especially in the spring and fall. Most divers imitate frogs, but you can tie them to imitate minnows or just about anything. It is important to retrieve them correctly. First, make long strong pulls, this causes the fly to dive. Short pulls won’t work because the fly doesn’t go deep enough. The deer hair body wants to float, but the shape will cause it to dive if you strip it fast. I can pull about 2 to 3 feet of line in each strip. If I want it to go deeper, I incorporate the fly rod with the pull. I start the strip with the rod pointing at the fly and as I strip, I rotate the rod moving the rod tip a foot or two away from the fly. The combined action of the strip and rod movement will move the fly 4 to 5 ft. I usually make extra-long pulls on the first strip to get the fly deep and then reduce the distance I move the fly once I am at the proper depth. Next, pause…the pause allows it to float back up. The rise is important, most of the time the fish take it on the rise. I usually strip and count…1…2…3 before stripping again. The fly doesn't need to come back to the surface. Keeping the fly deep really works. However, your equipment will determine how high it floats back up.
The equipment will determine how high the fly floats back towards the surface. If you want it to come all the way back to the surface, use a floating line with a 9-foot leader. This will produce a shallow dive/float routine. However, on the White River, the water was deep, usually 8 feet or more. I needed the fly to get down 4 or 5 feet and stay there to get the big browns' attention. This requires a sinking line. However, the current was strong and I was casting across it. It is impossible to mend a sinking line once it is below the surface. I needed to mend to get the fly to sink. Here I used a sinking tip line. Cortland makes some excellent sinking and sinking tip lines for streamer fishing. One can get different tip lengths and rates of sink. On smaller or shallower rivers, a 10ft T3 (3" per second) line works great. On big rivers, a 15 ft T6 line would work better. Using a sinking tip line wasn’t enough, the leader had to match the system.
My leader was 3.5' long. Why so short? If I used a 9 ft leader and 10 ft of line sank, the fly would still be near the surface and I needed it deeper. Second, the length of the leader will determine how high the fly floats back up. With this short leader, the fly would only be able to float up 3 ft or so, keeping well below the surface. To shorten the rise, add a split shot to the leader I modified the leader by adding a split shot about 1.5' from the fly. This would help keep the fly low and only allow it to float up 2 feet.
The change in tactics and equipment worked. Within five minutes, I saw a swirl deep underwater near where my fly should be…then the line got really tight. It was a big fish. I wasn't sure how big, but it dove to the bottom. I thought it was probably a brown trout. I held the line as tight as I dared and let it run when it wanted to. Finally, the trout began to give way, but when I tried to raise the brown, the fast current would put extra pressure on the rod. I instructed my son to raise the anchor and move towards the fish. Now the current wasn’t an issue and the pressure on the rod dropped considerably. Soon we had the brown in the net. It wasn’t a world record, but it was big enough to put a smile on all our faces.
The situation at the White River required an angler to be versatile and adaptive. When one tactic stops working, you need to switch to another. The local wisdom was nymphing and pounding the banks with streamers, but it wasn't working under the river conditions. My son and I could double haul to make the long casts required for streamer fishing and we had the equipment to make it work. Switching to streamer fishing a diver produced, not just one fish but two large browns in store order. It was a thrill to have caught big browns on the White River. Something I will remember for a long time.