Before I get to the actual floating and fishing of the North Fork of the White River, I would be remiss if I didn't give a big shout out to the fine dining establishment that we patronized Saturday night. The Three Legged Mule is located in charming Caufield, Missouri, was a pleasant surprise. Our waitress was as nice and attentive as you could ask for not to mention that the pizza was amazing. If you like cheese, you'll love their pizza because they don't short you! Also, if you're feeling adventurous and insanely hungry, give the Alaska burger a try. You'll have plenty to take home for lunch the next day unless you split it with four other guys...and I'm not kidding!
Finally, Sunday morning, the day of our float arrived. We worked to prepare breakfast, eat breakfast, and get geared up for the day. To say that fly and rod selection was challenging would be a gross understatement. Online research, local intel, my own ideas, and traveling light were all factors that had to be considered. I finally decided on bringing two 6 weight rods four fly boxes. I had a mix of nymphs, wooly buggers, and articulated streamers. I rigged up one rod with a wooly and the other with a stone fly and hare's ear tandem rig. The big stone was to get the fly down in the water column and the hare's ear would trail behind it. I decided to focus on these tactics rather than throwing everything but the kitchen sink over the course of the day. I decided if I was going to get skunked, then it was going to be on good old, tried and true methods.
Now at some point on the way to Sunburst Ranch, Cris and I saw a skunk running from the road and into a pasture. We joked about this being a good sign or a bad omen. I said that since we saw a skunk, then we got our skunk out of the way for the trip. I'm pretty sure we were both thinking that it could have been a sign from the fishing gods that we were going to get skunked on the river.
Amy, one of the nicest ladies I have ever met, got us all geared up for the day and gave us some directions to the take out point. We ended up putting 4 guys in 2 canoes and me in a kayak. I volunteered for the kayak since I know my way around a yak and felt a lot more comfortable than in a canoe. Unbeknownst to me, his would be a huge key to catching fish over the course of the day. To make a long story short, I caught all of my fish out of the kayak while drifting. The other guys didn't hook anything while drifting from canoes and only had a few hits while stopping to wade fish.
I ended up landing 6 stocker browns and losing a couple more. All of them came on the tandem rig and only one hit the stone fly. The hare's ear was the big winner here and I I'm not sure if I would have caught anything without it. All of my fish came on long, slow drifts near the bank in about 4 feet of water. While I didn't catch any wild rainbows, I was happy with some success on a new river especially catching my favorite species- brown trout.
So the end of the float came and a cold front moved in for about the last mile of floating. The wind picked up and the temps dropped which made coming off the river a little easier. The skunk prophecy held true for some and not for others, but as luck would have it, things changed for the better on day three of our trip. More on this tomorrow.
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| Oh yeah, we found this thing laying around The Hangar and took turns creeping one another out with it. |
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| To cap things off, Amy and Justin got a new puppy that I got to play with. It's some sort of squirrel hunting breed I'd never heard of. |
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