Finally Fishing Again - Spring River

May 18, 2013 - Spring River Arkansas

Somehow I have survived for three and a half months without fishing.  With the new baby, Board exams, finding a job, and getting licensed, I have been quite busy!  Fishing, however, is vital for my sanity.  For a month May 18th on Cheryl's calendar has said, "Kirk Fishing".  I don't need much more of an excuse than that!

I have been itching to hit some Ozark streams for smallies, but my friend Ryan and I have been wanting to catch some trout together for quite a while.  This was our chance.  Ryan is a great fly tier, but he is not an extremely experienced fly fisherman.  I told him that it was time for us to lose some of his flies - and we did!

As Ryan and I walked down the island at Dam 3 I explained to him that I had never seen an area as dense with snakes as this island.  I was in the middle of saying, "Some of the water snakes are even pretty large ... like that one!"  The snake was only four feet in front of Ryan when I pointed it out.  It was about eight feet away from Ryan a second later as he jumped back!  The snake was probably four and a half feet long, and it never moved.  Ryan kept asking if it was real.  It was.  I looked it up afterwards, and I am pretty sure it was a full grown, but not huge, Western Rat Snake.  Cool!

A Western Rat Snake - the first I've ever seen!

The Spring River is a place and take fishery.  It is teeming with planter rainbows.  I prefer to catch native or wild fish, but if I'm going to catch planters, there might as well be a ton of them!  The Spring is a great place to take someone new to fly-fishing as the action is steady and the stockers fight surprisingly well.  Within 30 minutes my fish count was in the double figures and Ryan wasn't on the board.  I caught a few more and took a break to eat some lunch.

The Spring River.  At 400cfs it was a bit higher than what I'm used to, but it was still VERY fishable!

While I was sitting on a log eating my lunch a conservation officer stopped by and checked my license.  I told the officer thank you and that I appreciated him enforcing the regulations.  He laughed and said he doesn't get that response much.  That's too bad, I really wish they would check more frequently.  Eventually Ryan came up and I could tell that he was frustrated as I had been hammering the fish and he hadn't caught one yet.  It was time to work with him a bit.


Planter rainbow. Sure, he was swimming in the hatchery a couple weeks ago, but they fight well and we caught plenty!

As I led our way back to the river I noticed a trout inches from shore in a small weedy opening.  Ryan told me to try to catch it, so I carefully dangled my flies in front of it.  Just then a two foot long water snake swam right in front of the fish, stopped to look at us, and then saw us and bolted away.  Ryan asked, "Did you see that snake?"  "Where!" I inquired.  "Right there at your feet by the fish" "Oh, that one, yeah, I saw it."  I was lucky I was with Ryan and not Cheryl, because she would have shoved me into the river at that point!  We got in the river and after a few quick pointers Ryan was into fish. 

Nice fish Ryan!  Nothing like a good grip and grin photo!

Eventually we moved to the Lassetter access and tried our luck.  We caught fish off and on.  The action was fast enough to keep us interested, but not great.  Finally I set the hook on a fish that bull-dogged me into the heart of the hole we were fishing.  Slowly but powerfully it worked its way upstream, testing the strength of my three weight.  I let Ryan know that I had a bigger fish on.  I soon realized that this was a brown, our first of the day, and that it if I landed it, it would be my biggest trout from the Spring River yet.  The fish ended up coming in without problems and we admired a rare treat on the Spring River, a beautiful hold-over brown.

My prize for the trip.  The nicest trout I have taken on the Spring River.

As evening approached a mist came over the water.  We wrapped up our day and made the three hour drive back to Memphis.  It was a good time.  We caught our share of planters, and the hold-over brown made my day.  In addition, I got to spend some time with a good friend wet wading (me) in a beautiful spring fed river.  Throughout the course of the day I saw around a dozen snakes, my first wild wood ducks, a bald eagle, king fishers diving after minnows, and a ton of fish.  What more could you ask for?

I had some fun in Picasa doctoring this one up.  I can see at as the background to a powerpoint sometime soon.

Obvious Fact:
When you really have to use the bathroom, wet wading in thigh deep, cold, spring water doesn't help!

Ryan making it happen.