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This week on the destination angler, what is it about the White that just attracted anglers from all over the world? I mean, it is really world famous.

I tell you why. Almost certainly number one is because it holds a very large percentage of trophy Brown Trout. In other words,

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don't exceed easily 20 inches and fish up to 30 – 40 pounds. That's amazing.

That's Davy Wotton and on the White River

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Welcome to the destination angler Podcast, the podcast for anglers who travel, and I'm your host Steve Haigh. We go right to the source the local guides and experts to build your knowledge of top fishing locations around North America. It's a big world out there now go and fishing.

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Going away for a while.

02:39

Introduction

And today our destination is the mighty White River in Bull Shoals, Arkansas, and my guest is the one and only Davy Wotton. With over 90 miles of fishable water the White River is an enormous tailwater system with a larger than life reputation. And deservedly so. Here anglers contango with trout only dreams are made of Davy is a UK native and has been fly fishing and guiding on the white for more than 25 years. He's appeared on numerous TV shows and podcast is a flight designer, consultant, manufacturer of fly fishing gear and a bit of a historian of fly fishing. But most of all, Davy is a fly fishing guide and teacher managing his American International School fly fishing.

So listen in while Davy gives us a great overview of the White River system competition, angling and how to go after those monster Browns a white is famous for plus innovative wet flight techniques that bring the big boys up for dinner.

As a bonus we cover where to wait fish when the generators are on and the water is high. And stick around to the end for some great stories of his close friend Dave Whitlock. Could the white be your best shot at that Tron of a lifetime? Well, let's find out from Davy.

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Alright, Davy, welcome to the show.

Yep, I am looking forward to speaking to you and enlightening our listeners. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for asking me. You bet. You bet. So I gotta start with you know, you've been in this industry for a long, long time and you fish all over the world. So maybe before we get in Arkansas on the White River, can you give us a kind of a rundown of some of your more exotic or maybe your some of your favorite places to fish around the world?

04:26

Top International Locations

I get asked that question a lot. And fishing is fishing, you know, and moving water is the attraction, obviously, of course, and but you know,

there are most definitely some areas in the world that you know, a little different, you know, New Zealand is one of those. And obviously, you know that my home orders though during Wales in United Kingdom, you know that they are a little different from what we have over here to some extent. And most definitely, they don't get enough to make the same kind of fishing pressure. That's another thing. But the answer to the question really is that it doesn't really matter to me where I'm at, you know, it's just some beautiful locations in Norway and many other most European countries and I've been fishing.

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There out there, you know, and all of them have gotten some liking, let's put it like that, you know, to where you are, particularly in areas when there's just not a lot of traffic, let's put it to like that. And that's, that's not quite so easy to find here as it is in a lot of the European areas. And a reason for that one of courses, access, you know, because almost all waters out there, right bearing ownership, so to speak. And there's no such thing as float trips on rivers over there. That's another thing. So it's all walk and wait access. And yeah, but you know, that said, if anybody believes that you can get access to fish, but that's not true.

05:39

Competition Angling

A lot of clubs and associations lease and rent water or you get day permits or whatever. So yes, you can you can get as much fish as you want. You just got to know how to go about doing it. I'd say over in the UK, you're saying? Oh, and Europe to Europe. Okay. Yeah, the same thing. There was a lot of competitions in Europe these days, it seems like our USA fly fishing teams going over there on a regular basis. Okay, if you want to talk a little bit about that, competitive fly fishing, pretty much started in Loch Leven, which is a famous lake in Scotland in the late 1800s. And that was largely brought about by different fly fishing clubs of which there are numerous numbers of them.  an age covered fish against each other without later related more so to the international events, wherever you know, England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland had their teams and so they fish that. And then of course, in later years, that developed further by pretty much by FIPS Mouche, which is the governing body so to speak, suppose the World Championships concern.

And so teams from different countries would compete at different events based on the country of of where the event was to being held. So you know, it could be Czechoslovak, in fact, it could be in Poland could be neatly here at one point. So yeah, I did a lot of that, you know, 18 years I fish Competitive Play efficient events, which I thoroughly enjoyed, you know, there's, you get to meet people from all over the world, and different means and styles and techniques efficient and whatever else, you know, and so you build up that kind of friendship with those people, so to speak. That said, competitive fly fishing, certainly in in Europe, by comparison to here is big time, there's no doubt about Oh, really? Oh, my. Oh, yeah. I mean, every weekend, I'd be major events. Generally, I might tell you, in most cases in UK, there would be held on, on still orders, in other words, reservoirs, because that can accommodate more people at any one time. So they're going to be fishing on boats, that it may be 60, boats out there, whatever. And it'd be 100 points per angler because two anglers per boat, but there's also river championships, too. So that's a big part of it, likewise.

But the article is about that, you know, competitive fly fishing, or shall we say you've been brought about by techniques or equipment? is no question without is been an absolute major influence. Worldwide, insofar as bringing about new techniques of fly fishing, and EU, what people would define as EU nutrition is definitely one of those, there's like that, which seems to be the you know, whatever, you know, and that was largely related more so to the Czechs and Polish guys, because they largely were responsible for that initially. And then you've also got what takes place there in France and Spain and the French are absolutely, in my opinion, let's put it like that. Probably some of the best fly fishers in the world. And then if you ever have the opportunity to fish, why is that? Well, a lot of that's due to the nature of the rivers, you know, they don't start rainbow trout and rivers, that's the first thing. So a lot of places you're fishing for wild fish. There may be some some sections where they start, but you've got to be really on your game to catch fish in some of those rivers i They're very unlike what we have over here. And of course, they develop high levels of skill, you know, if they come a fish, something like here on the White River, by comparison, it's easier for him to catch the fish because they're fishing with skill levels that are way above what the average person does. So but there's no question or doubt in my mind that French goes into Spanish too. So if you have a look at the world championship results, you will genuinely find about four countries that are going to be guaranteed within the top three, which may be Poland to Jackson factor of France, Spain or Italy, somewhere like that. So yeah, yeah, I mean, you're pretty much up there. But you know what? Those guys are doing it all the time. You know what I'm saying? They're on their game audits, and they're, they're so competitive and focused in their fishing.

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In order to compete for the country, you really got to be a high end class angler, you're not going to get there through every one good day. And that's it, you know, you've got to be consistently good to achieve your position, you know, as a as a member of that particular country's team. Right?

How to Up Your Game

Now, Davy, you teach fly fishing, I'm wondering, how do you how does an average angler, like me get to be, you know, an above average angler, like these competitive anglers, I'm, I can't spend 200 days on the water, you know, but I do you up your game like those guys do?

Well, you know, you kind of put the nail on the head right there to some extent, it's like everything else, you know, if you want to be a high in clouds, clay pigeon shooter, or whatever the case may be, as our probability is of it, you're not going to do if you only go like, once a month or something you you've got to tune yourself in. It does what explain it to you, and the more you do it, potentially, you may get better. But that's not necessarily true. Because if you don't have the knowledge, to put those skills into effect,

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it don't happen. And so really, the only way you're going to achieve high levels of skill is, obviously you've got a really good fundamental basics in the first place, that's first thing, you got to have the ability to fish on a fairly regular basis. That's the next thing. You also have to have the ability to fish many different waters, you can become extremely proficient fish in your local creek, because you know what to do and this. But if we went say, somewhere else, like you went out west, you might find that what you're familiar with on your own river ain't gonna work. So it's a whole new learning experience. Let's put it like that. Right. And so, in many respects, you have to have somebody that can teach you what you don't know. That's put it like that. I agree with you. And I think in many cases, you know, it's like everything in life. Some people have got natural ability, there's no argument about that, in my opinion, because I've taught hundreds of people, but some people just don't have that natural ability they can get so far. Let's put it like that. And obviously, they enjoy this. But there's a certain thing that is, you can't explain their fishy. You know, what I'm saying?

12:23

I taught bluegrass banjo playing as well as professional musician at this time in my life, when, you know, I can go into you know, somebody showed up and say, I want to learn to play the banjo, you can tell within a relatively short time, whether or not that person's got the ability to do so there's some things about whatever it is coil donation, how they do what they do whether or not hmm, system to be able to do it. And then some people that just don't happen. That's how it is, how much do you think it is just like, interest level? Like I find some people just aren't that interested in fishing in general, and they just don't have that in their DNA? That's exactly right. You know, there's a lot of guys I know here that are that way inclined, you know, they go out they enjoyed it, they'll find a river, they catch up with some fish or something that made a good fun day now caught some fish? Are they the kind of people that really want to pursue becoming highly skilled anglers? No, probably not.

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They want to for different reasons, you know, they may not have the time to be able to do it, or they're just comfortable with what they do. It's not a no makeup, as you say, it's not in their DNA, DNA to want to do that. But there are a lot of people that also want to become better at what they do. I agree. You know, I got a lot of people here, because, as you know, I'm highly skilled at the traditions Wet fly fishing. And there's certain fundamentals that they have to have before I can pursue that with them. And I can tell you now, unless they have fairly good casting skills, and coordination, that you generally can't go much further, because that's a big part of what that style of fishing is all about. And also, you know, a very great understanding of the water itself. You know, you look at a piece of water, you say, you know, where the optimum places where you're likely to find fish or not, you know, what size you choose? How do you present an upstream digested? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, let me just say this. A lot of the skill of fly fishing is based partly on experience. So I kind of tell guys, this, I say you go to the river to borrow, and you do this Not me either. And you end up catching no fish. Well, what did you learn? Well, primarily, what you learned was whatever you did, what didn't work? It was wrong. Yeah, that's so therefore that being the case, if you did did something different, where the odds more in your favor to catch some fish and the probability is that it would have done maybe

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You don't have the knowledge to be able to do that. Therefore, you got to learn acquired skills to improve on what you can at this point of time is your comfort zone. Right? Yeah. And so regardless, I mean, you can already put it, you can tell somebody this, I know for a fact that if use use these two names, I will guarantee you that fish will eat them. Okay. But in order for them to do that, you have to present them in a manner that's

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acceptable to the fish to do so. So for fishing for the above where the fish I didn't go to work to go, right. So there's just things like that. Just time on the water. Maybe. And you said earlier, you know that somebody has to show you some of these things. Yeah, that's right. It's time on the water. Right, you also have to be educated in what it is you should be doing or not doing? Yeah. And you know, there's so much stuff on social media, as you well know. And really, that just gives you knowledge. And what I mean by that is, it doesn't give you the property. So yeah, so the guy wants to whatever, dry fish and he looks at all this stuff on social media know how to fish dry phase, so he ends up going to the river. But guess what? He saw it, but he doesn't have the ability to put it into practice. Because you have to have somebody there beside you knows what they do and say, Okay, this is the degree of presentation relative Durango and drift that you need to make at this point in time. This is what you need to do with your rod in line controls, get that slider drip drive free. You can't learn that stuff, really by watching what somebody else is doing. You've got to have somebody that can tell you what you're doing wrong and how to put it right.

Yeah, I feel like things like reading water. That just takes time. I mean, it you know, you've got to catch a fish before you figure out where they are where fish Hang out. And it's not everywhere, right? Most of rivers are devoid of fish. You know, they're in what 10 20% of the water? That's very true in many cases. Absolutely. So yes, you know, and there's so many things that can, you know, affect, shall we say, fish, while I put it like this, the location of fish is very much determined by so many different things, obviously, you know, stream flows, current seems this out a depth of water time, the year what temperature the water is that there's just so many things that you have to take into consideration. And of course, the more experience you got, the more that you're going to come to terms with that. And that's like why I said to you know, if you fish your local river on a regular basis, you're pretty much going to know where to go where the odds are more in your favor to do that. But if you go someplace else that you don't go and never fished before, you may not figure that out too easy because the fish in that particular system may differ considerably from what it is you're you're used to doing on your own local water. Yeah. Great. Good discussion.

20:16

White River Overview

Let's shift gears a little bit here because we want to hear about the Ozarks in Arkansas and the kind of fishing you're doing down there. Could you give us kind of a high level on what the fishing opportunities are for the for the trout angler down in your neck of the woods in the Ozarks?

Yeah, I can. This particular area of the Ozarks, which is northern Arkansas, and I'm really based there in a mountain home here, and I actually live real close to both shows them. There are six drought water systems in the state of Arkansas.

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Top Trout Streams in Arkansas

So would you believe.   In the seven year the state you had the little Missouri and then you have the three, then you have the White River, then you have the short and five mile section of the Norfolk river that runs into the White River. Then you've got the beavertail water. And then you've got the Spring River, which is kind of like up on the close to the state line of Missouri. All of those except the Spring River or tail waters. In other words, water releases is basically not the lead out from the legs above the spring, there is no detail in that sense. It's pretty much a river that's dependent on water that actually comes out from a big lake and it's at Manor springs, we've got one of the highest flows of water from the spring in the United States that I know I think is second.

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Okay. Yeah, the Spring River. The White River, of course, is a big river is about below bull shows dam has about 100 miles of trout water, which is, you know, a serious amount of water.

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There, this factory mind in this particular part of the country that is not just cold water species that gives you the options to fly fish, the whole area is surrounded in lakes and more water systems like the Buffalo River, Cricket Creek. So there are lakes, from ponds, you name it, you can pretty much go within an hour from Mountain Home. And within an hour you can fish anything you want it warm water or cold water species. So it's not this the trail system on the White River. That's is is that for, you know, is just quite unbelievable. In that sense.

22:31

Wading Opportunities

Is there some waiting opportunities for for the anglers, you know, like are some of these rivers a little smaller? Like the spring? Can I get there and Wade that pretty easily?

Yeah, pretty much that particular river has has pretty much consistent flow of time, because like the natural release of water from the springs pretty much stays the same. All of the other rivers that I mentioned are subject to generation issues. In other words, you can have very low flows, or you can have in the case of the White River, you can have as much as pretty much 25-26,000 CFS of water.

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If they open the generators. And that's one thing about the White River system. Right now, you know, we've seen a lot of minimum flow. In other words, that's approximately around 650 700 CFS. And that gives you a lot of access to white fish. The thing about it is that the access points are somewhat if I was to say, limited. In other words, what I'm saying is most access points for public access are based on where there's gaming fish, boat ramps or access points, surely something

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outside of that, if you've got, you know, a friendly landowner that has got access to the river, fine, you can use that means other than that, the better opportunities are right, you use a boat to get you to some of these areas where you can wait fish, let's put a queue like that. Which is why a lot of us do so we can get places you know where the general public and are congregated.

Gotcha.

The North Fork River

The North Fork River, which is the foremost section is probably the most popular, accessible wastewater, certainly when it's on low flow because you've got two major access points on that route to access to wastewater fish, but you can walk upstream or downstream and whatever but the only thing you have to be consideration or consideration is what they're going to do in generation and that's so important on rivers you need to at least know what the likelihood of water release is. I'm not saying that they always do what they tell you they're going to do and you have to be kind of wary of that to be honest. Saturday on a river like the Norfolk River. That water comes up there and a don’t hurry and miss you are aware of it. He might get a phone and take yourself out of them. That's one thing.

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Yeah, I’ve gotten caught on the on the North Fork, we had to get out of there in a hurry, all sudden, the rocks started disappearing and the fish start stop rising you, you're focused on these rising fish and you look around and all of a sudden, a man the water's coming up and let's get the heck out of here. And like within five minutes, it was a raging torrent in five minutes. We had to get out of there.

That's right. That's exactly right. People don't realize how fast even on the White River how fast water will raise because when it initially starts pushing, that force of water is considerable. And even if you're sitting waiting up to your knees, I can tell you within, as you just said, within five to 10 minutes, that water is probably going to be up to your waist, then it's much more difficult to move across that border force than you think. So yeah, you have to, you need to be careful about that.

28:16

The White River

let's shift to the white what is it about the White that's just attracted anglers from all over the world? I mean, it is really world famous.

I tell you why. Almost certainly number one is because it holds a very large percentage of trophy bout brown jar. In other words,

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don't exceed easily 20 inches and fish up to 30-40 pounds. It's amazing. Yeah, I will say this. I've never experienced the same thing here. As I have on any other river in the world. You know, no joke. I have eight days here with two really good fisherman. And during times when we've had major hatches like Titus, we've pulled out last but we've actually bought to the boat anywhere from like 10 to 20 brown trout. I mean big fish. Okay.

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I don't know anywhere else you're going to do that. Not here anyway, for that number of fish. And I'd say to answer your question almost certainly it is the attraction that come here and catch one of those world class trophy brands don't get

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this river has produced a number of them use the wild record actually comes from the Little Red River which is engraved spray which is 40 pound four ounces. But there's I know a number of guides said not fly guides mind you that make guides that have caught a fish over 30 pounds. Yeah, but they're primarily fishing lightly. You know, minnows are they on the little red are on the white? No, on the White River. Okay, on the white okay. Yeah, so I will tell you this. Those brown trout are an edge species group

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anyway in the first place, but I would tell you this, the average large size of brown trout, you probably will fly rod catch is going to be in the larger sizes somewhere between 20 inches, or shall we say a fisher around seven or eight pounds? there abouts once those fish that over that kind of size, while their food base is different, you know, I'm not saying you might know, an odd one or two if you're fishing big streamers on that, but you sure as hell is going to work a lot of hours to go to get a fish like that. Let me do so. But that said, if you go anywhere, and you've got brown trout or anywhere between like 20 to 30 inches, that's a trophy trout and a fly rod. No question or doubt about it. Yeah. So the attraction almost certainly is for people to come in and catch one of those trophy browns.

Species of Trout in the White River

That said, the White River has a number of different species. So we have brown trout, and rainbow trout, of course, we have three different strains of cutthroats. So we have Snake River fighting spots, we have village stone, and Bonneville. We have tiger trout. I noticed so people call them golden trout. They're not really that palominos Do you know what I'm saying? Very different. Yeah.

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Yeah, they're pretty looking things. You know, you can see him a mile away. And we have brook trout. So there was a time you know, when I first came in, he considered like, you know, we get a White River Grand Slam in the same day catch a brown or rainbow. A brook trout are cutthroat well, at cause we got more species in there now. And the chances of you catching all of those in one day, I'd say extremely remote ain't gonna work.

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But I don't I'd like to my angle is, you know, what, if you can catch four different species, as far as I've been seen, you've got a grand slam and you've got four different species. Yeah. Because somebody?

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Yeah, you know, they're so easy to find, let's put it like that. Particularly the, the cutthroats I mean, the odds of catching three different strains of kung fu in a day are pretty remote. And the brook trout, January on the upper section of the river, they obviously prefer cold water. That's the first thing they stopped I'm pretty good, you know, and for quite a while after they did that will catch him but I don't think too many of them survive. And and the reason I tell you that is because the predation of brown trout and other predators, you know, herons been a number one is that we got a fairly good population of bald eagles, they're doing because they like eating fish. And then you got otters and

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you know, an angle is to you know, I think a lot of the tourists fishermen we get, they don't know the difference between a brown trout cutthroat or a rainbow, whatever. And even though the regulations and signs tell them you know, this is a different species. They don't know. So they ended up getting whacked on the head, and so we lose them. Right? Yeah. What's your personal best out of the way?

33:07

25 lb Trout

I caught a brown trout. Here the weight, I noticed an exception to the rule that weighed 25 pounds.

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And I didn't, I did not catch it on a streamer. I caught it on a sailboat. And I caught it by the dam. And I was more than likely to get that fish. And I'll tell you for why. Because at the time, the water was dropping down from the generation. And in one particular area up close to that dam. There's an area that holds quite a lot of water as it's running out. And there were billions and billions or so bugs there. And as the water was dropping, so those cell bugs were coming down and like these little rivulets I mean 1000 a nice brown trout. These brown trout were just sitting in a pool below and they were just gulping on the Starbucks. That's how I looked at fish. The fish made a mistake it took off and beached itself. Why?

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Yeah, if it had got onto the main current work End of story Yes, it's absolutely no way. Okay, so the fish this fish went the wrong way. It literally came up on like on land kind of. Yeah, beaches. Oh my gosh, on the ropes in that pool. Yeah, that's what he did. Oh, my gosh. Wow. The best one boat draw I've got here was just a little over eight pounds. Cutthroat six pound two ounces. They were probably the most notable fish because as you would imagine, I'd see hundreds of 1000s of fish get caught here in my time and you know, and

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brown trout 20 inches, was suddenly you know, between 18 and 22 inches by any stretch, they're not uncommon. It's good fish. Oh, yeah, they are, you know, certain times a year makes catching them a little more difficult. Brown Trout waves up

35:00

The Caddis Hatch

And particularly when you have a lot of low water flows like we've got now you know, so both traffic, angler activity, whatever, you know, what will change that will be later on in the year when we get the caddis hatch which really is the first major, shall we say emergent patch that you know they get into, and they really get the going nuts on those so often we'll catch a lot of pretty damn nice fish at that time when the caddis emergence is going on, and likewise to when we got hatches later on. So in many respects, you know, the hatches itself, putting it more in your favor to catch your trophy brown trout because they're

35:42

they're just psyched into feeding on those.   once that happens. Yeah, they they get a little more difficult to catch. The other thing is the shad kill if if we get them. So the Bull Shoals dam kills threadfin shad. And right now the dam is closed, they closed that during the spawning season, and that don't have enough to offer to February. So if we have exceptionally cold weather in the lakes, which brings Lake temperatures down into the low 40s. And they generate pretty good water levels, there's a pretty good odds that it'll draw those shots through the dam into the river below. And guess what, those fish just get to gorging themselves there. And you can end up catching some pretty damn nice fish. The unfortunate thing today is since I've been here, there's just so much traffic here on the river compared to what they used to be. It don't take long before that boat traffic going up and down up and down and does a person down. So you may only get oh, maybe an hour good fishing, and then pretty much they're shut off for either wrangling pressure, or they just get they get totally stuffed with those shards. And if there's a ton of them, you don't take them like 10 minutes, and they won't eat them all because they're full up. Therefore, oh my gosh, yeah. You never know where the shot kill will will not happen. You know, it may happen today. And you may not see it for the next two weeks. It's hard to predict that, you know, suddenly those times of year based on water release and or late temperatures where the odds are a little more in your favor. But they no guarantee that right. So a lot of people like to try and fish a shot kill Shopko Yeah, he can't time? Uh huh. No, not really generally. I've seen shot kills come through here in August, you know, in the warm months a year because obviously this shows a shatter close to the intake and they get pulled through. But typically, it's more in the earlier part of the year during the colder months. Yeah. But no.

37:49

Fly Fishing to Trophy Trout

I definitely want to get into when and how you're going after these these big fish and also want to talk about Westlife fishing because I know that's your specialty. But I wonder if you could kind of give us it? Can you give us an overview of the 100 miles of the white like it's a big winding, twisting river with lots of Shoals and things but how do you kind of break the river down for the fishermen? Okay, I can answer that to you a number of ways. If we take for example, the first 40 miles, that is from bushels down to the confluence of weather Norfolk river runs into the white river

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upstream of that sea is probably more fishing pressure than anywhere else on the river. And there's reasons for that one is access a boat ramp. Secondly, there's a lot of the red called trout ducks in other words, so you have some major resorts on the river that provide guidance services, and also rent boats, which is not the case when you will be much downstream from the conference. So all of that relates to a pressure in this upper section of the river. The other thing is that most of the brown trout food game of fish surveys determined that the majority of the brown trout by percentage wise numbers and size are found in the upper 40 miles of the river.

The Norfork River

As opposed to the other 60 Miles going down from the Norfolk I can tell you from experience there most certainly are some damn good fish down there, but not in the numbers that there are in this upper section. And so that also relates to the fact as to why a lot of people choose to fish more so in the upper section of the river because of for that reason, I just told you

39:33

that consequence relates to ultimately fishing pressure, then certainly in the last two or three years is is unbelievable. Or since the year of COVID that like do like that. Oh really? Okay. I try to I try to avoid that if I can because I know what's gonna go on you know that there's no calm water. You don't really get you know, obviously when you fly fishing you need to like drift to the banks and

40:00

Whatever. And when you got both traffic up and down, up and down, and all that wave was just coming across, and your boats going up and down, it was like in the ocean and it's pushing all that crap onto the bag and the other, those fish get pissed off, then you know, they shut down. And so you really got to figure out best times of the data get out there. Usually early in the morning before most of the traffic and then after I say about four o'clock where most of the guide activities off the river. Okay, so if we go downstream, due to Confluence, the Norfolk river being such a short section of five miles, if they're generating sufficient water for boat traffic to get up to the dam area, once again, you see a lot of fishing pressure, that I mean, there's a fairly significant trophy zone there which supposedly eliminates people fishing other than, shall we say neck artificial plates be applied as they can spin a fish they had to but you know, and I was supposed to use, right or anything like that. Unfortunately, the people don't abide by the regulations. And it happens.

You talking about the norfork? Now Devy yes.

Okay. Yeah. On the White River, you have only two trophies owns today, the bow shows dam area, which is one of them, which actually just as a short section, ironically, it comes down to what we call the wind dam at the State Park. And the other one is that rim shoals which is approximately 24 miles further down. And it's about a, not a mile really after that. There are none. So outside of trophy zones, anglers can do what they want.

41:41

The Lower 90 Miles of the White River

That's pretty true like that. So they can fish by whatever means they want, but they're not allowed to use the treble hooks that leads to bait fishing. Okay, that site when you go downstream from the confluence, and I really liked that section of the rear eight, because you just don't get traffic down there, like you see in this upper section. But it's pretty hard to river, you notice beautiful bluffs down there. There's a lot of really good water what I mean by that good show water, obviously during the lower flows, and of course, you ended up getting down there to Calico, which is approximately 60 miles from both shows then, and from there on, of course, you got about another 30 Odd miles before you get down to SILMO. And it's very little commercial business activity in those areas, except right there down at the lower end is Solimar which is like 90 miles down. Yeah, but you just don't see the traffic in that section of the river. The downside is that the levels of water in that section of the river really has to be right in other words, if they generate high flows here at Bull Shoals dam, they've also got generated water coming out of the Norfolk conference. Ultimately what happens is the further you go down the river then of course the fishing is not good because so much trash in the water because obviously the further it goes down, the more it picks that stuff up. So ideally, if you have in my opinion anyway, because I fished those areas a lot. Over the years, if you have something that both will go somewhere three to 6000 CFS of war combined between the two rivers that I considered to be really good water down, that's good water. When you say trash in the water. What do you mean by that? Okay, so when when water rises, inevitably it cools off the banks, okay.

43:32

Big Flows

But not only the crap, as the water rises, it starts running off the banks like mud and silt and sand and coarse gravel and whatever else and of course, the further you go down the river, the worse that becomes. So ultimately you if the rivers running, what I consider to be consistent, perfect flows. This is an unbelievable Clear, clear river. You know me you can see fish down there a long way down, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and that's it kind of like a Spring Creek, that's where it's mainly winter. But certainly when you get hot ladies that fluctuate degeneration, so if you have so for example, minimum flow right now about 650 700 and as to date it cranked it up to 11,000. I guarantee you, unless you keep well in front of that rising water, it's going to be pretty bad. One way or the I not only ate, it can shut the fish down but if you're in if you're in front of that rise, it's also pretty good if you know what you're doing to keep in front of it. For fishing because as the water rises, so dislodges food based off of better the river baguette, whatever it is Starbucks Scots or cottage paper caterers love okay what I'm saying? Yeah, so that you like you catch the river when it's rising. That's what you like. Yeah, if at all possible. Yes. Okay. But eventually when they run is really high water.

45:00

In high water generation, that's going to be running around three miles an hour. Okay? So that tells you right there, you got to, you got to kick moving down a river in a dam hurry, because it'll catch up, do you know, right? And then you've got two choices. You either crank up and you run down root of five or six miles and try to get away from it, or you run way upstream and get above it, where the water starts to clean and clear up because obviously, the initial push is moved downstream and all that crappy stuff that was at it is way below you. So if you get upstream, and you generally got cleaner water, certainly in this upper end, obviously, you know, if you're closer to the dam, you're generally not going to get, you know, fell water purely because there's nothing they can do that but as it moves further down. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Is the sounds like there's a lot of things working against the fish as you get farther down the river. Imagine water temps are one of them. A lot of junk in the water? Are those the main things that are really causing the fishing to not be so good as you get further downstream? In the case of generated high flows? Yes. The further you go down, the more referee that can get so I mean, I guided on this river.

46:20

Navigating the River

When you think oh, well over 20 years, you know, when I first come in, there weren't too many fly guides here, it hardly. Now we've got a lot of these new guys here in this era, I would tell you, when I first came in, you know that we saw a lot of minimum flow stream a lot of low flows, there was no minimum flow, in effect at that time was only 50. CFS or water released from the dam, which is rarely. Wow. Oh, yeah. And nobody at that time, very few runners get motor, they may have a 20 horse Mercury converted, but most of us all run prop motors, and they still do instantly. So you'd run a 15 or 25, maybe mercury, prop motor, you sure as hell learn how to navigate this river when it was like Well, yeah, you know, it's, it takes experience, and you'd bust up a few props, or whatever the case may be just to learn how to navigate to get through certain sections. And it's an experience I can tell you and take care. You know, if you're out in the river in a regular basis, the Doug gay got probably customers with you. So the last thing you want to do is screw up. So you're stuck on the river or something because you messed her up. I go out there by myself. And then that's what I would do. So I decided, Okay, I'm going to put it down here, I'm going to see how I can work my way over upstream to get up to wherever it was I was going, it's easy to float downstream. That's the first thing getting back up is another matter, right?

47:49

Because you can flow over a gravel bar, there's probably only got three or four inches of water. But you're not going to get up there in a hurry with a drop motor, you can write, in fact, this situation today is even worse than it was when I first came out the years of this high water generation has displaced a lot of structure, you know, there's more about seven islands that used to be preys on them. And this, you know, that that they're no longer there, they're gone. And so all that subsequently be it the gravel, the rock, all of that one, once that

48:30

is destroyed. Now it was all the vegetation is destroyed, that the topsoil gets washed off, and then inevitably, all the gravel and the rock, all that gets pushed off and makes its way downstream. And that ultimately creates big areas of shadows and grow bars and things. So yeah, changed a lot over the years. That's

48:49

okay. Yeah, I know. It's just how it is, you know, it's high level, you know, you run they run 20,000 CFS or water, that is a lot of water. That's a bunch. Right? Yeah, you know, and that goes on for day after day after day, you know, and it just moves everything, it degrades the banks, and all of that stuff inevitably collects into the river basin, which is now a lot wider than it used to be. And of course, it creates those issues. So yes, it's a little more difficult in that respect. But, you know, ultimately, what I was saying was, that's how I learned this river. Not just, you know, being able to navigate it, but where fish would more likely to be raised on the levels of the wall. And that's one thing.

49:37

Understanding Water Release Schedules

One of the most important aspects of the White River system as big as the tailwater is, is understanding the river. You know, how does water release? relate to your options? Suppose where you will fish for that day, you know, are you are you an airway? You're going to get forward in water. Are you going to get raising water? All of that is accumulative knowledge.

50:00

Just to know your options for that particular day. So what you would do, you would look at the prediction for their generation that day. So if they say, well give me an example, just say at 12 o'clock tonight, they shut the water off from from, say, 10,000 CFS a generation? Well, you know that if you go out on the river at eight o'clock in the morning, it's going to be back to the level that they run it down to say 3000. But if you were further down river, you still got that 10,000 CFS, either rising or falling out. Okay. And from years of experience on the river, you know, roughly at what point of time it takes for that water to either rise further downstream, or start to fall out or you're the tail of the fallout. So that is very relevant to your options. Suppose the best options you've got anywhere, there's so shall we say, suppose fishing a way to go on that particular day? Yeah, it's very, very important.

Targeting Trophy Brown Trout

Davy, what are people doing? Who are going after those big brown trout? And I believe it's in the late wintertime when they're doing that correct? Not necessarily. That difficult scenario is this. I don't know how well the brown trout was born this year, because the water temperatures been up in the 50s. And that's not conducive to brown trout to sport, and they need water more in the mid to high 40s. You know, the

51:31

wet river we've had so much as that warmer water, that's put it like that. So what normally would happen, those brown trout would spawn in the right conditions somewhere, you know, November, December. And of course, once they've spawned this, as they pretty much go down, you know, in other words, they just rest and whatever, you know, they they've been suppressing food through the earlier part of the year prior to that, and they're living off their body fats, or whatever else, then they start to become really aggressive. And so you're looking at, you know, sometime maybe February onwards, and a lot of those big fish get caught at that time. And the reason being is because they're famished, they're hungry. So if they got high water flows, a lot of the guys like to drift and fish, live streamers that have banks and spin them back. Okay, that can work, you may get a shot kill, which is really good, if that happens, because they will literally go light shed on that stuff.

52:32

And so yes, for a period, and of course, the bad guys, they're maybe going to use live minnows, or they catch the shed, and they use the shag, whatever the case may be. Yes, at that time of the year, the odds are a little more in your favor to catch a really big fish, let's put it you're like that once. Once that period of time is

52:54

seized, which it will and that is obviously related to a number different things. One is fishing pressure because they've wised up, you know, Brown Trout he gets caught. Ah, so easy to catch the second time around in a relatively short period of time, you know, so they need more natural food base available to the fish. So these obviously they start rainbow trout in the river. Well, guess what?

53:21

Those damn brown trout they know exactly when that stocking tract is last. Dumping those fish at that moment. Oh my gosh. Yeah, your receipt is big Browns come up there and it is now these rainbows coming up. Just Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. Lots of times. And so you these branches are now given an abundance of food shall we say beer stock a rain was but then of course it's the water temperature warms up and so things like crawdads become active because obviously they they pretty much hibernate in the winter and people realize that but they do you know and they pull it out on the banks they bury in the medina banks and so they become active though. Well, they got them on the menu, and they go after the bait fish in the river. So it changes their cycle in other words, that they're what they feed on what they're looking for. So if you take a tampon brown trout for example, in the gorgeous itself on a 14 or 15 inch rainbow, a probably not going to eat another one for a while and tedious digest that kind of like a snake you know, he may be thinking six months a year, but then brown trout like that. So on the other and they do stupid stuff, you know, ripcord brown trout that are got the title of a big rainbow sticking out there now but they study a little fly. He's like, What the hell you know, really do that. The probability is that they wouldn't they didn't actually go looking for it. The odds are that that that slide literally came right in front of their face. They need this grant. They couldn't help themselves. Yeah, okay, now. That's right. So yes. The answer to your question is that

55:00

The primary optimum times for the larger Browns generally speaking, in the earlier months of the year, and it goes later on, as I said, you know, that kind of that quiet and then you have the cottage sides. And that can vary, you know depends on water temperature and atmospheric conditions, they may stop sometime towards the end of March could be in April. And then once that starts because the caddis hatches on this river, unbelievable. I, I've never seen anything like that in my life. I mean, there are billions and billions of carnage flies every day, every day.

55:39

For weeks and weeks. Yeah. Wow. But though brown trout, I'm not saying you can't catch them on the surface, you can. But generally speaking, I tell you that those brown trout don't come to the surface, they stay close to the bed of the river. And what they're doing, they're literally gorging on those pupa. As they're moving downstream, off the riverbed in ascend to the surface, they just sit there and open their mouths and gorge on them. I know that for a fact, because I've did some study on those brown trout as to what their feeding habits are. And that's one of them. And the other thing you won't have happen is if they run high water flow generations, they're gorgeous selves on nightcrawlers worms, sure, because they get out of the banks. So, you know, I can tell you a time a few years ago with this one particular I was fishing, I knew for a fact, there were a lot of good browns in this particular zone on the river. I knew for a fact they were there. And we tried a few different things and that kind of got to Mike Yeah, I know don't know what they do it. So we started fishing with

56:51

a was called Davyd one. Prison can worm. Let's put it like that. Once that fly went on and started being fished, let me tell you, it now those brown trout one after the other, and those fish were asleep. So gorged on nightcrawlers. There were four of them in front of their mouths.

57:12

Wet Fly Fishing

So, you know, if you'd have carried on persisting fishing with like, whatever, a pheasant tail or something like that, the probability is you wouldn't have caught one of those fish because that's not what they were looking for. They look into these forms, you know, show Davy, you, you specialize in wet flies. Why is that something you really like to talk about. Tell us a little bit about your wet fly fishing experience.

You know what, you know, why are you so excited about what flies? It's kind of at an ancient thing to be doing, isn't it? Okay. Well, a lot of reasons for that. First and foremost, if anybody has knowledge of the historical aspects of fly fishing, which go back hundreds of years, that's the first thing the use of what you define as the website. In other words, the sun fly, which how people fished, obviously, they were limited with their equipment. In other words, what I mean by that is, it was no such thing as you understand today. I mean, they they would build rods, they were anywhere 12 to 16 feet, their leader systems were made with

58:17

what you define as tapered or fold photo horsehair that was attached to the fly. And to that which attached, as we call a new European were thinking leader, and attached to that word, the flies, which are also tied to horsehair, because they weren't, I'd hooks back then. Right. And you will limit it obviously, by the length of the rod, how far you could fish with those stripes. So typically, the length of the line would be related to the length of the rod. So the longer the rod, the longer the light. And that would give you more ability to fish further away, as opposed if he was fishing for rock. And so they were essentially by those flies or fish those right, so to speak, and they would cast them onto the water. And of course, hopefully they did do sufficient take, which in all probability in the earlier days wouldn't take long because those rivers over there in Europe, there, there'll be 1000s efficient and not necessarily big fish, but you know, it was nothing unusual Would you believe for anglers to catch 50 or 100 fish a day but they will only be probably six h fish. Anyway, I was first introduced to fly fishing back there in the 50s by a person that did exactly that. And they just that style of fishing absolutely fascinated me because nobody really knew too much about nutrition back then. That really took place the history of that really goes more so to what took place on the infrastructure and like the test the edge and the candidate whatever the case may be. I never really bought about more so by

1:00:00

History of Wet Fly Fishing

I people like SKUs, whatever the case may be, but prior to that it was almost certainly Wet fly fishing that was practiced. I'm not saying for one moment that the manner in which they tied some flies would not allow that fly do for a short time, float on the surface. But bear in mind, the lines that they used back then, before cell lines came into effect, so to speak, would think, and so that the consequences of COVID replies to see. And it really wasn't until cell lines came into being where you, of course, they also related to the fact that fly reels came into being you. And then lines were made considerably longer, so the angular could pass further. And then, of course, in the late 1880s, dry fly, so to speak, as people understand it, became, shall we say, more knowledgeable, but most of that also orientated to work took place on English short sleeves. That's not to say that didn't take place elsewhere. Let's put it you like that, we can only refer back to the literature that was written in those times, so to speak. But that's not to say that was the whole story. Anyway, the act of traditional Wi Fi fishes, how are we we find that

1:01:19

in UK let's put it like that. So if you say to somebody, yeah, you know, we wept like this, you were they may not necessarily understand quite what you're trying to tell them. They may assume my you know, where you're fishing, or whatever I go, Well, yeah, of course, the Wi Fi because it's things but in the truest sense is forested traditions of his concern. If you are an English or posted in UK, we'd understand that to be a specific style of flight. I, you know, like a wing went by Bo Marsh, Garner his air, or Dunkeld, or a butcher or Alexander or something like that. And then you have, of course, the soft tackles. Most of that is darkly as literature written about it, that relates to what took place in in what we call the North Country, which is the northern part of England. And that's why somewhat, it's referred to as the North Country style, a soft dipoles you know, like a, no engineer

1:02:17

is zero, whatever the case may be a debt that does not say soft tackles weren't used in other places, because they know suddenly, whoa, because I can do for an absolute fact assault pack was by definition, I needed style and nature to fly were used in other areas be in England, Wales, or Scotland. But nevertheless, it's a style and technique of fishing, which is very little understood. is true for the amount of be known. Certainly here. It's still a widely practiced method efficient over there certainly in Europe, right, particularly in the UK. No question or doubt about it. It is there's a lot to it. There's a lot more people, a lot of people don't really don't understand that other than the fact that them software coefficient is more or less constant alone across a slightly downstream and stripping the flies back. Okay, I don't like do it won't pass use of fish as any other thing you check out there and do catch your face, you could you could tie an egg fly on them and chuck that out and strip it back now go into some time or other it to catch a fish, right? Yeah, but that's not what it's all about. It's actually an art, very skillful form of fly fishing that takes into consideration consideration so many different things. Reading water, of course, is one of the primary so knowing exactly where you're likely to find fish, the choice of flies that you use, the manner in which you present those flies, B drift modes or slightly animated modes or whatever. And sudden flies, I believe leaning towards that style of wet fly fishing so to speak. Right.

Wet Fly Retrieves

Say more about that? Like what when are you using different styles of retrieves and casting and those sorts of things? Like give us give us some ideas there?

Oh, yeah. Okay. The typical scenario with a website rig, or cast of flies, as its we call it is that you will be fishing as a rule, three or four flies on details droppers that are spaced approximately 25 to 30 inches apart, and a drop has been somewhere between average four to five inches and the top dropper maybe longer. So if we're using three flow rate, the Tao fly is defined as the point fly. The middle fly is the dropper. And the top fly is your top dropper. In other words, your butterfly. Okay. So the choice of flies is based on exactly what it is you choose to want to do, but more to the point where I'll affect your age. So for example, we can

1:05:00

to the river, and we see some fish surface feed. And so we take into consideration what are those fish eating? You know, are they eating blue winged olives? Are they eating Paris? Or are they eating? mayflies or some salt? Are they eating spinners? Okay, so if you have any sense, you will use flies that in some way over a representation to those specific species. The thing about wet flies is that they're not. If you're like, anatomically tied, in other words, as you see how people tend to tie names, you know, which I think in many cases, fine, you know, you want to tie stuff off like that in a vise, but you know, does the fish really care about it? I'm not going to argue about that one right now, but nevertheless, so you're using flies that are caricatures. In other words, so if for example, say we say we have a emergence of brewing dollars, which of course are a relatively small mayfly, though you would use typically flies that have an orientation towards use an award and bow will be one of those, okay? Or small flies that aid orientation of materials use. So they would have agree hackle, for example, and need ever mope of body a guy. Okay, so you would fish those in more in a day drift mode. In other words, those flows of fishing really close to the surface.

And as most of us know, probably more emerging insects are taken at this time of transition from the nymph to the winged insect. So may play of course, that any other time And largely that's due to the factors that fish can see them a lot is or wants them in the minister. So blood surface. So we do fish. And because different states have different laws, mind you, I mean, only allowed to fries, but that's okay. Here, you could use tenure if you wanted to. But that's kind of nice. So let's put it like that. So what you do is you present those flies upstream in a dead drift mode. So the flies actually track downstream at the same speed and movement of the surface of the water. And that requires you to instigate really good line control. So you don't cause those flies to drag or are not seen by the fish the way that the natural is, you also have to focus your attention seriously, into where you know those flies are. Because in that mode of fishing, you're not going to generally feel a pull. Sometimes you do, but generally you don't. So you're going to be looking for some surface disturbance. Or you're going to look at the slightest indication of the furthest visible point or your flyline or leader that you can see. And if you really focus you will see it, believe me. So you may see it slightly slow down. You may see it suddenly just stopped because the fish took the finance Melbourne course,

1:07:54

to the ledger. But yeah, I knew all you got to do is raise right, so.

1:07:59

Okay, so that's one. That's one note. So let me ask you some Davyd, you said 25 to 30 inches apart, it seems like a lot why so far apart? Okay, well, there's good reasons for that. A number of them relate to this one is, the closer they are, the more likely you get entangled. Because don't forget, we're in the process of the cast as that line is thoroughly and over. Those flies are hanging off those droppers. That's one reason. The second reason is that you don't want to confuse fish. In other words, if you keep those drives separated, the odd soft fish will focus on one fly, as opposed to saying to and decider or which one do I take, if you know what I mean by that? So that's another thing. The next reason is that you can actually present the flies and cover more water in other words, to explain that. So we're looking upstream and we're certainly directly upstream is 12 o'clock, okay? So we're going to present applies at say a two o'clock position, though, is what we call fantail. In other words, so as those fries are presented, the two o'clock position, the further is fly is going to be probably five feet away from the fly that's closest to you, across stream. Okay. So that being so you're covering effectively more water. In other words, yards or more fish within that zone are likely to see what you're doing. You don't catch the wreck the upstream like you were to dry fly. If you do that, then the flies essentially are being coming downstream in a direct straight line. In other words, the tail fly is directly upstream of your top drop. That's no good. Those flies are going to be a relative degree of angle away. That's important. And so the leader is not over the fly over the fish. Is that why? No that's probably will happen. You know, what is the fly line? You don't own a fish. Right. Okay.

1:10:00

Wet fly tactics

Okay, so what you did what you genuinely do when you see fish working in the surface like that or not, is that it's a process of covering effectively the waters. So the first thing you never do is pass across stream, which I'd see people do all the time, why the hell you do that, you know, this fish in front of you? Why are you counting 4050 feet over there, because you're just lining them and you're putting them down. So you start with relatively short what we call shortline cast. In other words, you've got virtually no flyline out the road, only enough to be able to facilitate cast, who knows, right? So you effectively fish that is what we call like, pigeon tail. In other words, from 12 o'clock to three o'clock, look at it like that. So you fish that short sector for a while, nothing happens, then you extend your line, maybe a yard or two yards, so you gradually keep working out. So as you're doing that, you're effectively casting further upstream, but the fries are drifting, if you like, uncovering more water on that track, downstream.

1:11:03

And generally, what you do with that style of fishing, is you pick the flies up when they're more or less at a position directly across from yourself to the far bank. Okay, and you proceed, you proceed upstream by doing that. So the fish this water, okay, so you move upstream and you fish water that you previously did not fish. So you're always carving new water all the time. That's the drinks, right? So you're picking you're picking your your lineup, Davy, it's going from two o'clock, to just three o'clock. Basically you're saying right, when it's perpendicular to the bank, you pick it up? And casting again, is what you're saying? Yes. Okay, it's not a technique that, then that's that particular technique where you, you fish, extensive drift, you may be forced to, you know, an example would be, oh, you know, 40 feet, or 50 feet across the stream, which I can access because the water is too deep, this fish rise enough that bank, I want to present a dead drift motor, those tries to dos rises. So yeah, I'm gonna initially present a long pass directly upstream, probably a about a 132 o'clock angle, but I have to then create a min did not line by throwing what we call an hour shave. And that allows those drivers to track dead drift through those fish that are 40 or 50 feet away. Yeah. And then pretty much once you get to a position or more like, you know, about three o'clock, or a little more passed, then you're going to create deviations of drag. And of course, that causes the flies to swing off that bank and come downstream and towards you. So it's kind of the easiest way to explain that to you is that I tried to tell people, they're supposed to tie three dry flies on your setup as opposed to three subsurface trays, you can see you have to fish those flies in that manner. In other words, you have to have those three web flows like you would those three growth plays no, look at me stupid. And I said, No, no, no, you can do that. Because what it's going to teach you is how to create a drift and flies with adverse drag. All right, right.

1:13:20

Now, the other techniques, I relate to more, slightly more to the 230 position, and you're tracking those sliders

1:13:31

for a certain period of time as in a dead drift mode. But then once you get to somewhere like about three o'clock to 330, you actually raised the rod, and by use of the rod and your left hand, you track those flyers, so they come back across the river towards you. They're not going downstream, they're coming directly across the screen towards you. And so what you're doing, you're animating those flies with right and left hand control, which is the means where you recover line in a manner where they really induce the fish to come out and take them. So for example, you can imitate the skater in sage coming across the surface of the water, right?

1:14:11

That's there'll be other patterns that you can use, which are not case orientated, shall we say, which will likely cause the same reaction from the fish, they see something that's moving on or near the surface and they think as they normally would? It's a natural insect and they're going to come out and whack it and I can tell you, I have caught some awful big brown trout in my life doing I mean, be me they have come up with a hit that like damn tank, intimating the flies a little bit. Yes. And you cannot do that unless you fish two or two or more flies because you need the tail fly, or the two flies below the top fly to act as the physical anchor. In other words, the drag that they cause or create in the water allows you to use that time

1:15:00

Travel which may be on a drop was six to eight inches in length. And you can keep that flight skittering on and off the surface as it moves back across stream towards you. Okay, I see what you're doing, literally out of the water bouncing on the surface. Yeah. Cool. That's neat. Yeah, I know. Let me tell you. I've seen 1000s of times brown trout and rainbow trout, come out of the water and grab that fly in the air. That's a good day when you see that. Yeah, I remember the first time I showed Dave, my friend Dave Whitlock, that some techniques of wet fly fishing because they've never seen that done before. And we were out down river there at an air record steamboat shows which is nice there and Ray fish. And I was explaining to Dave what I was doing and as the gods would have it, they brown trail about six pounds come up. And now that droplet fly, and he was like, eight feet away from us. When we were fishing, and it blew his mind he could not believe a fish like that come up. And I'm pretty sure to fly yours was a silver Invicta which is a very famous workflow from the 1880s. And is I wouldn't believe that ride never saw it. Okay, because you can animate a top driver flow like that by itself. You can only call it you know, it's like saying you got one single dry fly caddis. You can only really caught that flight of scale on the surface, you have to have our anchor fly, or some of the things that's below it to be able to use to raise it off.

Dave Whitlock

Right. Now, how did you get to know Dave Whitlock? Oh, we known each other from the 1980s when he came over there to UK any payment system on my local river would meet at the time the river ask in Wales. And he'd always told me about a White River how fantastic the fishing was a huge browns in this era, you know, and to me a 20 inch trout from local rivers over there was a monster, you know, I'm saying like, rainbows in the reservoirs. I mean, huge rainbows, you know.

And anyway, I, I was I came to the US back and forth, you know, because I did business over here. As you know, I developed all the dubbing products and so on the other and one thing I got requested to come over and do programs for different fly fishing clubs and stuff and I did that. And because Dave lived here in Arkansas at the time. And ultimately what happened was, I came and stayed with him and Emily in the early 90s Okay, and he would take me out on the White River which blew my mind you know, I'm not you know, rivers in the UK don't have rainbow train. Well, there's one exception to the rule to the rule. But typically they don't because no large document there in the first place. And he told me on the Norfolk River, and I did something that was he'd never seen before actually, I caught in forecasts. A grand slam, which was a Rainbow, rainbow, brown trout, and a culprit but it's a totally different style of fishing. You know, because typically use a sailboat or a red fox burning for something like that. Really, we wouldn't Dave say when you call for four different fish in four different gas. Do you remember what he said? I don't remember exact words. But I do know he says to me, I've never seen that happen before in a forecast you catch the four species? I think I'd say why don't you fish on the every day that's just this guy's pretty lucky that sounds pretty good. Yeah. So it but the whole fascination of this river been so totally different to everything I've fished anywhere else, you know, it was unbelievable, you know?

1:18:51

And you know that and also he introduced me to fishing with an indicator and I'd never seen that before because people in Europe didn't use no indicators we used our fly loans and or what you might call the Euro style of fishing and her words you want your flying you look like a leader you know for the taker to fish or if you are fishing distance you'd watch the ended up flying grease it up and museum or something and you would see the type so when he first showed me that, you know indicating everything of course it made logical sense and you could suspend a fly relative depth for a long period of time for a dress which you know relatively with Euro stone envision has been may not face as your shortline or your what we call Roman fishing, you know and same thing, which is unbelievably effective. And he and I got to talk into more about that, you know, and

1:19:50

he told me one time that he had a date and if I can think think of his name, and oh Carl Richards that I should pass the gun. Yeah.

1:20:00

A very well known person and he's day in and wrote some really good books. And that they would fish it. I know where they were fishing, they were efficient at RIM shows, and choleric, just couldn't understand why Dave was catching probably six to seven fish days one, you know, like, well use an indicator. And they told me that he couldn't believe how effective that was, as opposed to what he was doing. I wish I could understand, you know, I'm not saying by any stretch of imagination, that scene or a bill, but I will say from understanding it. And of course, we fish the majority of our customers say certainly in drift fishing on the railroad indicator rigs. That is, it is unbelievably effective. There's no argument about that. I've noticed that by any stretch of imagination is the most efficient way at all times. But it does allow people to, shall we say,

1:20:57

fly fish in a much easier way. Let's put it like that in catch fish. So yeah, so of course, we, we became very, very close friends, and we fished together so many times. He taught me a lot more, he told me a lot about

1:21:13

warm water species stew, because we don't have those in Europe, UK anyway.

1:21:19

And stuff. And that that blew my mind, too. You know, we'd go on a creek or something on the lake. And we cast these top water barrels and lamb up companies.

1:21:31

That's so much fun.

1:21:35

Yeah, I would say this. And I've known a lot of very good fly fishermen in my life. And I know a lot of people with names that have fish with me over the years. And I ain't go saying this, because he's was a very close friend of mine. I missed the hell out of him. You know, he passed away a year ago last November. Sorry, he, in my opinion, and we're relating this to cold and warm water, not salt water, of course, he is probably.

1:22:03

Or in America anyway, most certainly one of the most influential persons insofar as, as fly fishing education. I know how his money thinks, you know what I'm saying? Because I've spent so much time with him. You know, he's is there won't be another individual like him. That's pretty true. Like that hurt. He's a character. Oh, yeah. You know, and it's knowledge. You know, so far as the development of things that he did, you know, over the summer, you know, he had the greatest range of flight patterns that he had innovated, which at the time were being marketed by no one else will ever come close to the number of flies that they've had commercially produced by a commercial company. Yeah. How many you think that is? Like 6070? Something like that? Yeah, no, more than that. Oh, really?

1:22:58

Yeah. Yeah. Because they You mean it was all the flies are related to the warm water species? And obviously, all the flies are related to the Coblenz thesis? Yeah. So yeah. pretty unbelievable. He gave to me, one of the very few coats or jackets that I'm CO produced, that they gave to their signature flight tires. And they gave to me the one that they gave him. And he gave me a lot of other personal stuff, too, which is cool. That's neat. His special guy, he is a special guy. Oh, you want me? Let me ask is we're closing out here. I wanted to ask you, you know, you've been in this business for a long, long time. I can't imagine how many 1000s of clients you've guided. I'm curious, like, what have you learned about human nature when it comes to fly fishing? Oh, oh, that's a good question. Well, the first thing I'd say, is that observation, more than anything else. There are very few people that you guide or whatever, that I would consider to be very observant people and your powers of observation have a great deal to do with your ability to be a good fly fisherman. It's not just a question of, you know, chucking out what you got on your flow right out in front of you this whole you have to be observant about what's going on around you on the river, you know, did you see those two fish rise over there? And I say that they see those two fish, right know what, well, why, you know, wildlife, you know, different species of wildlife around you. But then also, you know, on the river itself, you know, when you get to the river before you even think about chuckling flies out in the water, observe what's going on. Tape tape, forget about this all of a sudden wading out in a railroad style crashing and crashing away you know, pay attention and observe what's going on. Look at the water. What that water is

1:25:00

Honey knew a whole bunch of stuff. You know, Rafi way likely to go out and fish where the seams are older that is so important, as opposed to just going out there and going out it, you know, either hatches going on new new fish, do you see any fish stuff has faded? If you do, what are they doing? Are they feeding on major they know whatever it is, obviously, in a large people's like a cat as you probably see it. But smaller species, it's not so easy to do that. All those things you could take into consideration before you even think about progressing further out into the river and start fishing, you know, that demo considered to be a very important thing. powers of observation, no argument about that. That's a good one. Yeah. And then of course, your abilities. Let me just say this, I would say this. And I'm not being disrespectful to anybody that listens to this, but there are very few fly fishermen, or people that fly fish that I would put a high end, either by their knowledge or their skills, or both. I would say that for many their downfall, more than anything else initially is their custom skill. But no argument about that. If you do not have good casting skills, you are very much restricted to what you can or cannot do. Okay? So if you don't develop the skills, for example, to effectively control and drifted dry fly, while they knew not going to have much fun doing that, you know, going to bed on the other end if you're wanting to cut codons that way, I'm going to go wait fish, I'm dissing choco where he would eat burger, chuck it across stream and strip it back. Yeah, fine. I know going to catch you some fish party going to enjoy yourself. But did you learn anything? No, you really didn't initially learn that? But are you going to, you know, increase your skills or your abilities by just continuing to do that? No? Do you want to do that? Do you want to learn more skills? Or are you just one of those, ya know, I'm happy doing what I'm doing.

1:27:07

Some people only on the other hand, if you spend a day with me, and you want to learn more about the skills of dry fly fishing, or wet fly fishing, for that matter, are you prepared to go out there and suffer days when you don't catch next to nothing, because for whatever reason, you weren't observant about what the fish were doing, or your abilities just don't

1:27:30

relate to what you know. And then what you're probably gonna do is relate back to your comfort zone, you're gonna go back there, you're gonna start fishing, you're already what do you buy this, you have to understand that, you know, to learn skills, there's a period of time where you're not going to really benefit from that learning process, so to speak, you've got to develop those skills. And that takes time with the right instruction and your ability to really get on top of it. Having a teacher like you. Yeah, and there's some other good guys out there to you know, I mean, I don't know if you've interviewed my friend, George Daniels or not yet. I'd like to get him on the show. He'd be great. Yeah, he's a good one right there. And, but if they don't have casting scope, it's the big problem. Yeah. You know, for example, you know, I could take two guys on this river, that have never fly fishing, like before, never had a fly rod in there. And they're going to fish with an indicator. And as long as they can get that out on the water, and 20 feet, 25 feet away from the boat and watch that indicator. And if it goes down, hang tight on the line and raise the rod, the odds are they're gonna catch a fish.

1:28:41

If you put them on the water by themselves, because they have no clue. Right? So, you know, educate him in that sense of word. And that's fine, because that's part of what it's all about being a guide, you teach people, you educate them, and they have fun doing that? Would they pursued it to want to really develop high levels of skill? Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I think in many cases, the majority of people that we deal with, don't have the time to go actually fish on a regular basis. You know, they don't live close to a river where they can do it. So you know, they come in for that three or four days on the White River and they probably don't get to fish too much elsewhere. Whatever the case may be. Its ultimate patient is made out.

Wrap Up

All right, we gotta we gotta wrap it up. Davyd, this has been great talking to you. I got one more question for you. And that is where can people go to hungry thirsty angler at the end of the day? What are your favorite places? They're near the White River. Okay, so the main area is Mountain Home, which is approximately about 2025 minutes from where I live, which is our pet boat bull shows. There are a lot of restaurants down there and places you can go drink whatever the case may be any immediate and there is over there on over in the Norfolk area as well. Salespeople that score same thing. The closest place