STREAMERS...

Last week I had the privilege of guiding a few fellas on their first ever streamer trip…. We fished the White River from the State Park down to Wildcat. There was a decent size push coming from Bull Shoals Dam from 7-11a.m. We launched around 8 so the water had crested and the initial trash had moved on. The weapons of choice for the day were seven weight Sage Bolts lined with Orvis Depth Charge 250 grain full sinking line. Typically a seven weight will get the job done and my anglers don’t fatigue as fast as they would with an eight weight. For leader/tippet I was running 14 lb. flourocarbon. After a few missed fish, and many casts that fell three feet too short the boys started to find their groove and started connecting with some awesome brown trout. The fact that we didn’t see another boat and that it was snowing all day was icing on the cake. Winter is the perfect time to get out and start chucking streamers. Big or small. Floating or sinking line. It really doesn’t matter. The grey skies make the fish feel more comfortable swimming around, the cold temps usually keep some nice “fish water” coming through the turbines and the browns are coming off the redds and are ready to start packing on the pounds they lost during their spawn. If you’re ready to start trying something besides nymphing now is the time to pick up the streamer rod. A few weeks ago during the minimum flow run we were seeing on the weekends I had a seasoned angler who didn’t want to nymph so he threw small streamers and wooly buggers on his 5 weight and giggled every time a fish ate it…so don’t be discouraged if when you show up the water isn’t big and mighty and just right…there’s still a lot of fun to be had winter fishing!