BUFFALO CITY — When you invest heavily in stick-baits, you intend to use them, and when trout demand them, you’d better have them.
It was a stickbait kind of weekend on the White River on Feb. 17-19, when a group that included Bill Eldridge, Rusty Pruitt, Ed Kubler and Brad Conley checked into our lodgings at the White Buffalo Resort. Our winter trout trip traditionally occurs in late January, but Matt Leiboult, owner of White Buffalo Resort, persuaded us to postpone our visit for a month. The weather would be extremely cold, with about 5 inches of snow forecast, for our usual time.
“I know you guys like to fish in the snow, but you probably won’t like that much snow,” Leiboult said.
We also like to fish in pleasant weather, and the prospects for better weather improved in mid-February. Leiboult sealed the deal by offering to upgrade us to a larger cabin for no upcharge.
The trip began as usual. Pruitt picked me up at my house at dawn. Eldridge and Kubler, both of Benton, rode together. Those two have some peculiar customs. They begin these trips by picking up a dozen donuts at Dale’s in Benton. Then they have to stop at the Clinton Walmart to get salad ingredients, potatoes and anything else they didn’t think to pack. Then they have to stop at the Subway in Clinton, and then again at the Flippin Walmart to buy trout fishing tackle that isn’t available at the Clinton Walmart.
Conley is go-go-go from can ’til can’t. He’s laser-focused and mission-driven. He is also utterly tireless. I told Conley that Pruitt and I intended to arrive at White Buffalo around 11 a.m., and that we hoped to be on the water by noon. Conley arrived at 8 a.m. and had all of his gear and enough food to feed a Ducks Unlimited banquet stowed when we arrived.
We arrived about 1 p.m., by which time Conley had practically paced the finish off the wooden flooring.
Conley, Pruitt and I are restless anglers. We cover a lot of water trolling stickbaits. They are especially effective for catching big trout, and they work best in slightly high, fast water. We usually begin fishing about a mile or so downstream from Buffalo Shoals, and then we go upstream to the Ranchette area to a couple of holes that always produce at least one big trout larger than 22 inches.
That wasn’t possible on Feb. 17 because extremely low water prevented a prop-driven boat from getting through the shoals. I was inclined to try, and Leiboult knew it. He made it clear that I wouldn’t be doing that.
It didn’t matter. Conley and I started catching fish just past the Buffalo City Public Access. Trout were plentiful in a 200-yard stretch from there upstream, but they were small. We went about a half mile farther to a stretch that consistently produces bigger fish, but we’ve not fished it in such low water. We caught fish there as well, but they also were small.
Here we encountered another peculiarity of the Eldridge-Kubler dynamic. For as long as we have made this pilgrimage, they always tie up to the same midstream log. We joke about how it would upend their world if we were to sneak out at night and cut down the stump. Kubler soaks prepared baits on the bottom and Eldridge suspends small jigs under a big casting bobber. Fishing was slow for them, and we took great delight catching trout after trout, trolling just out of their casting range.
Irritated, they went a little farther upstream, tied to a tree at the convergence of a side channel like they always do, and fished the same way. We followed them and continued catching fish near them.
To our surprise, a hydropower surge arrived at about 3 p.m., allowing us clear passage to Ranchette. Or so I thought. Three men in a big boat pushed by only a 9.9-horsepower motor was no match for that amount of current. At our speed, if our gas held out, we would get there about suppertime.
Meanwhile, the current filled the river with grass and coontail, rendering it unfishable. We saved the day by going into the Buffalo River. We caught trout almost all the way to Elephant Head.
We celebrated friendship and fishing, as always, with hubcap size ribeye steaks from Breitweiser’s Meat Market in Benton, along with corn on the cob, baked potatoes and salad. For dessert, Kelly Eldridge made us a chocolate and pecan cake. Conley made a cake that can best be described as a pecan pie pastry.
Sunday greeted us again with even lower water than we had Saturday. Trout would not hit a trolled stickbait. Eldridge and Kubler, tied as usual to their mid-stream log and got few bites as well. On a hunch, Conley and I took a chance on fishing as we would for bass. Floating downstream within a short cast from the bank, we threw stickbaits at every bit of cover and structure we saw. Trout came from behind, under or within laydowns, boulders and grassbeds.
It was really exciting in that gin clear water to watch a rainbow trout blaze like burning phosphorus and make its signature slashing strike on the lure.
Other times they followed the lure. About 15 feet from the boat Conley and I briefly stopped the retrieve. As soon as we resumed the retrieve, the reticent trout pounced, always taking the rear treble hooks.
It was all too much for Pruitt, who to this point had spent his time in the front of the boat as an observer. Pruitt suffered a catastrophic hand injury several months ago teaching a child to fly fish at Dry Run Creek. After surgery and still undergoing rigorous rehab, he is just now regaining use of his hand. He couldn’t stand to merely watch any longer, and he caught a few fish as well.
On Sunday alone, we caught and released more than 40 trout, and we caught about 20 in a half day on Saturday. We were tempted to take the stage for an encore on Monday, but our fishing itch had been thoroughly scratched.
It was well worth the wait.