Arkansas Sportsman

Little Red browns leave fishermen tickled pink

HEBER SPRINGS -- A "lightning strike" fishing trip to the Little Red River last week was perfect medicine for three harried anglers.

Bill Eldridge, Rusty Pruitt and I had been too busy lately for so few hours in a day. Eldridge took the week off to fish for crappie at Lake Ouachita, but the fish didn't cooperate. Pruitt has been working tirelessly, and fall is always the busiest time for me.

We started batting around ideas for a one-day road trip, or a "lightning strike." Eldridge suggested smallmouth fishing on Crooked Creek. Pruitt suggested trout fishing on the Norfork tailwater. Too far away, I countered.

"How about a float trip on the Caddo?" Eldridge said, making a suggestion.

Low water makes canoeing a chore on the Caddo in the fall. Besides, our February trip is always better for big fish, I countered.

Pruitt countered with the Little Red River.

"We could be fishing in an hour and a half," he said. "I know a place where we can catch some real 'pigs.' "

As good as the Little Red is, I always overlook it while scanning the horizon for someplace else. The fishing is great right now because brown trout are spawning, and this is also a good time to catch big rainbows. The Corps of Engineers hasn't been running the generators much at Greers Ferry Dam, so the river is wadable more more often than not.

The vote to go was unanimous.

Pruitt secured access to a friend's private access near Ritchey Shoals, a few miles downstream from the Cow Shoals Special Regulations Area. The river is thin and shallow in low water, with the pool/shoal arrangement typical of Ozark streams.

The amount of cover in the water is astonishing. Coontail moss covers the shallows and the shoals. Trees adorn the sides and bottoms of the pools, and an array of snags and laydowns creates eddies and deep pockets that hold trout.

The coontail moss makes the Little Red fish a lot differently than the White and Norfork. Trout hide under the moss mats, which provide homes for a huge amount of invertebrates and minnows that trout eat.

You can't drift a nymph along the bottom of runs and seams the way you can on the northern streams. Instead, you have to drift a fly so that it nicks the top of the moss.

Trout were feeding when we entered the water. They were dredging their snouts along the bottom, apparently seeking sculpins and other things that live among the rocks. Pruitt caught two right away with a nymph called a Chronic. When the Chronic went cold, he switched to his favorite Flashback nymph.

Eldridge caught one with a Crackleback behind a casting bobber with his spinning rig. I tried four or five different flies with no success as I worked downstream. My destination was a narrow pool that cuts against a rock-reinforced bank before turning left beside a boat dock. Trout were feeding voraciously there, and at least one big brown put on an extended aerial show.

I had been steadily downsizing my flies, and went from colorful to drab. A feisty rainbow trout finally hit a tiny midge. I figured I was in for a day of small rainbows with that setup, so I switched to a spinning rig and my favorite trout lure, the Rapala Ultra Light Minnow in brown trout color.

This lure is not like the Rapala Original or Sinking Minnow. It's long and tapered, with an arched back. It sinks slowly, and it stays down during the retrieve. It's the most reliable trout catcher in my tackle box, and it garnered immediate results.

My first fish with the Ultra Light Minnow was a small brown. Two casts later I caught a 14-inch brown, and then another before the commotion shut down the pool.

Pruitt invited me to fish a run where he and Eldridge caught a handful of fish. I pulled a 12-inch brown from there, as well.

The weather was gorgeous when we arrived at the river, but a cold front blew in quickly and brought a light rain. That really fired up the fish, and we caught them for the rest of the afternoon. Pruitt caught about a dozen. I caught 10, and Eldridge caught a mess, too.

The rain, along with the gentle, clouded screened light of afternoon made the fall colors look positively brilliant. We basked in the afterglow of an awesome day, recharged and resolute to tackle all that lay before us.

Sports on 11/02/2014

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