White River Trip- Part 2

Day 1

So for the first time since the planning of this trip, I started to get excited.  As my dad and I pulled out of my driveway, I slowly felt all of the responsibilities, stress, and duties fade away in my mind.  It must have been noticeable too because I talked his ear off until we stopped for lunch outside of Springfield.  We covered topics that ranged from trout feeding habits, wills, barometric pressure, politics, MOMO (the Missouri Monster) and family members but my mind was starting to narrow on how and if we would catch some brown trout.

Outside of Springfield, we took Highway 160 as my dad had planned.  He wanted to take a more scenic route through a section of Mark Twain National Forest and I'm glad we did.  While we got a little turned around because we missed a turn, it just added to the father/son time that we were enjoying.  Also, I'm glad I don't get car sick.  That is one hilly, twisting, and winding road!  It was also surprising when we stopped for some adult refreshments that we encountered a life-like statue of MOMO.  The irony was not lost on us and we got a good laugh out of that.  If you don't know what MOMO is, I suggest you look it up.  It is pretty interesting.

Have enough people tried to steal MOMO that he needs his own security system?

After the MOMO sighting, we crossed the Arkansas border and were getting closer to Gaston's Resort.  As I mentioned before, we had both heard about Gaston's and knew that it was a good fishing lodge with a restaurant and landing strip for small aircraft but that was about it.  As we followed the signs (which there were plenty of and thank you to Gaston's management) we noticed a small menagerie of birds located just outside the result.  There were domestic turkey, wild turkey, guinea fowl, pheasants, and peacocks.  I started to wonder if they were kept solely for fly tying purposes but that is probably the unhealthy direction my mind seems to navigate towards.  We pressed on.  We pulled up to the office at a little before 3:00, checked in, got our fishing licenses, got dinner reservations, and headed to our room.  It wasn't anything fancy but was clean and nice which is just what we wanted.  A television, a heater, two beds and a shower with warm water.  It was a bargain at twice the price.  I quickly proceeded to put on my waders and rig up a fly rod.  I was on the water by 3:30.

I knew I had about 3 hours to fish before our dinner reservations and thought it would take about that long to get my first bite.  I'm not kidding.  Now I don't know about you, but I struggle on new water and I struggle mightily.  I try the old tricks that have worked on other bodies of water, get frustrated when they don't work as expected, try things that others suggested, get frustrated when they don't work, question why I fish in the first place, wonder if there are fish in the water where I am fishing, and then go back to using the tried and true methods.  At some point along this continuum, I usually pick up a random/stupid fish that renews my confidence and efforts and helps me to start putting pieces of a fishing puzzle together.

I fished a spot downstream from the resort where my former basketball coach suggested.  To make a long (2 hour) story short, the water was fast, shallow, appeared to be unfishy (to me), and I quickly lost feeling in my fingers as well as motivation.  Not only did I fail to hook a fish, I failed to even SEE a fish.  I shouldn't have been surprised that I was struggling on new water.  This wasn't new to me but it still got me down.

I decided to head back to the room and either spot some fish along the way or go ahead and get ready for dinner.  I met my dad outside the room and we started talking about the fishing I experienced and the fishing that was to come.  We talked about how the water LOOKED similar to Taneycomo but was shallower and faster in places.  It was at that point that I thought I saw some trout rising.  Now I was a little skeptical about this because I hadn't heard anything about the dry fly fishing on the White, and I thought I was maybe seeing small fish or even ripples that were being made by the current.  With my dad being a little skeptical, I pursued the fish anyway.

The fish I had seen rising were on the far side of the river, but as I stepped into the water, I spotted about four fish rising on the near side of the bank.  They were consistent but I had no idea what they were feeding on.  I have a general rule when this happens.  I put on a Griffith's gnat.  This method works about half of the time and I was happy to settle on those odds.  I cast to the first fish and was not surprised when I spooked it with lousy casting.  I always spook the first one.  When I cast to the second fish, I thought I had a chance with it, but it disappeared.  As they say, "the third time is a charm" and I hooked my first White River trout.  It wasn't big, and it was probably a little dumb, but that was one of the most memorable fish of the trip.  It was like finding the first corner piece in a puzzle and put a BIG smile on my face.  To top things off, my dad saw the whole thing and I later realized that my excited echoed off the bluffs on the far side of the river.  Inadvertently, folks knew that I caught a fish and while I was thrilled, I was also a little embarrassed.  That concluded day one.