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| r | His Place Newsletter - August 2003 Hello! My word! It's been such a busy summer so far!!! We've had so much fun spending time with all of you, and we are genuinely grateful for what you add to our lives here. It's been pretty warm in July, but the last 3 or 4 days have been lovely... We've been busy adding a new RV site, and tree trimming in all our "spare time". The Corps has been running the water later in the day, so for the most part we've had tailing out low water in the mornings and it's come up later in the afternoon. This had made it good for waders and boaters alike! We have a TWO very important issues that WE NEED YOUR IMMEDIATE HELP WITH!
Welcome to the Newsletter! We hope to see you soon...
Mid South Fly Fishers July Outing
Thanks, Mid South Fly Fishers!!
We had such a good time with the Mid South Fly Fishers on their July Outing, the 11th and 12th! Mike Stark, the Prez of MSFF, came a day early with his wife, Andrea, and Don & Barb Branson to "prepare" for the festivities... then some more people snuck in early too! (read - fish a little ahead of time... :-) As you can see in the picture above, there was casting instruction given, flies were tied, stories were told, and we had good fishing with a lot of nice, wade-able water, too! Dinners were given on Friday and Saturday nights, where we had a turnout of about 60 or so persons. If you've been thinking about joining a fly fishing club - consider MSFF! With frequent outings, classes, fly tying info, their great publication, the "Homewaters" book, a helpful and informative website, and a bunch of really great people to get you into the sport of fly fishing, MSFF is certainly committed to its members! Visit their website at http://www.msff.org/ for more information!
August - What the fish are biting on…
Fly Fishing - Streamers - various sculpin, crawdad, and minnow patterns are working right now, along with the standard White River "Old Faithful" - Olive or Black Wooly Boogers, size 8 or 10. The bead-heads with the red throats are working even better... :-) For the deeper water, those flourescent red San Juan worms are the things to try. Bait - Crawdad tail meat is still getting it, along with the Canadian Nightcrawlers, and yellow or chartreuse Powerbait. Artificials - Countdowns, size 5 - silver/black and black/gold, Colorados in silver/gold.
Aunts & Cousins... Demonstrating the proper way to hold a Canadian Night Crawler, we have some fine young fishermen, and their Moms, from Chicago. Now, don't let that whole "Chicago" thing fool you... These ladies brought the boys to camp and fish by themselves, that's right - no men-folk to accompany them, bait their hooks, or even pitch their tents... and they got along just fine, thank you very much! :-) Sorry, guys - don't get your hopes up. The lovely sisters Carol and Barbara are happily married. And their sons, Nick, Ricky, and Andy are pretty happy too. And why wouldn't they be, with cool Moms like this! OK, so Andy (in the yellow life jacket) doesn't look too happy about holding the worm, but we let him put it down as soon as the picture was snapped... :-)
Fish Story of the Month! Do all your flies have a gap like this? Another beautiful evening on the White River. Chores were done, (well, close enough) guests checking in had arrived, (well, my wife can handle that) and we had rising water, coming up to about 4 generators or so. Time to jump in the boat with the fly rod and see if we can find "Mr. Big Fish". So, I waited until the wife was distracted, pretended to be emptying the trash, grabbed my fly rod and made a bee-line for the boat dock, making sure to accidentally turn my 2-way radio (electronic leash) to the "off" position. (The last time I left the radio on when I sneaked out to fish, the wife called just as I hooked into a nice one, saying, "Steve, someone must have stolen your boat! I've already called 911 and reported it stolen, and called all the downstream docks in case it just got loose. What should we do now? If you're done weed-eating, you need to come back to the office, now." She seemed to think that was pretty funny.) Anyway, back to the story... I decided to run an 8 wt rod, with a full sinking line. I hoped that a Sculpin pattern would be the way to go that night. It soon proved itself to be a good choice, because on the second cast, "Mr. Big Fish" proceeded to inhale my Sculpin fly! After setting the hook, clearing my line, and dropping my motor into reverse, all I saw of Mr. B. was a tail fin at least 6 inches across as he proceeded to put as much distance between him and me as possible. Before I knew what hit me, I was about 75 yards into my backing. After doing my best to promptly control my line, and fighting him directly from the reel, it didn't take me long to realize that I was making little headway with this fish. But apparently, he knew he had the upper hand! It was about this time "Mr. B." decided to rest for a several seconds in slack water, regaining his strength and devising his next move. Then he decided what to do... He took off "cross-current" hard as he could, putting as much tension on the line as he knew how. No one will convince me that fish don't "know" these things - at least the big ones. Well, believe it or not, he didn't break off... But look at the de-barbed #2 hook on that sculpin pattern fly in the picture below. Notice the gap? "Mr. B." managed to straighten that hook as he pulled free of me, and that's when I got that terrible sensation; the dreaded feeling of slack line... He got away this time - But it was fun while it lasted... :-)
Critical MINIMUM FLOW UPDATE!!! The time has come to make your voices heard! We have until the middle of October to get thousands of signatures on our petition in support of Minimum Flow. It doesn't matter where you live, in or out of the state of Arkansas. We need YOUR support! In case you weren't aware, minimum flow is a very simple concept. Run a little water to keep more of the river bottom covered, the temperature of the river down, and the oxygen content up. And no, we're not talking about a lot of water here. It's just the difference between 250 cfs (cubic feet/second) and about 800 - 850 cfs, only about 6 - 8 inches of water in our location, but enough to make a BIG difference in the health of the river! (In case you haven't been kept up to speed on minimum flow, the details, and why it is SO critical to the health and well-being of this river, please refer to the December 2002 newsletter archive link at the bottom of this page, under Newsletter Archives. It gives a full explanation.) What can YOU do?
OR you can sign and / or help get signatures by one of these other two methods.
AGFC needs your help - new Trout Mgmt Plan!! Would you like to have some input on the how the trout are managed on the White River? Now you have your chance! The rough draft of the AGFC Trout Management Plan is now open for public review and comment through September 30th, 2003. (see download link below) There's been a Trout Program for years, but not an actual plan... What's the difference? It's huge! The plan outlines clear goals, something the existing Trout Program has never really had. Future regulations, stocking schedules, and other management schemes would be required to fall within the guidelines of this plan, should it be approved. In the past, the "tail has often wagged the dog"... Regulations have been spawned by a particular event, politically driven, and have often, though unintentionally, caused conflict between different groups that use the river. Darrell Bowman, our current AGFC Trout Biologist, was kind enough to come to the last Outfitter's meeting and give us a presentation on the new Trout Management Plan, which personally impressed me quite a bit. To explain to you exactly what this document is, let me first start by telling you what it is NOT. It is NOT a detailed schedule for stocking. It is NOT a set of suggested regulations. It does NOT suggest adding more Catch and Release areas, or eliminating them either, for that matter. It does NOT promote slot limits, nor increases or decreases in daily limits... Rather, it is merely a "high level" document that will help guide AGFC in the future with regards to managing the resource. If adopted, it will be the "Bible" so to speak, giving AGFC a real direction to concentrate their efforts in improving the trout fishery here. First - it attempts to remove the emotion and politics from the game. The plan dictates that scientific data would have to be gathered before new regulations were proposed and enacted. This information would come from a variety of sources to ensure it's validity, including angler preferences, biologic information, habitat information, etc. If a new idea or proposal did not line up with the plan, it would be thrown out - regardless of who came up with it or why they thought it was a good idea. I'm still studying it myself, but from what I gather so far, I'm impressed. Second - It stresses increased involvement with all stakeholders. The plan states that it is "built on the premise of stakeholder participation and feedback. Input from stakeholders must be considered as part of the information needed to develop specific management plans in the Implementation phase for any given trout water." That to me is one of it's biggest "pluses". Often times, when regulations are passed, (or huge boulders, logs and root beds placed in the river for the lower units of our motors to find, :-)) it's often difficult to ascertain the reasoning behind these actions. This proposed increase in communication and interaction would ideally set the framework for a more involved, cooperative, informed, happy and safe set of river users. Third - Promotes accountability. Have you ever wondered about existing regulations that really don't make sense to you, or maybe you even feel that some of them have downright "backfired"? How do you ever find out for sure? For that matter, how does AGFC ever know for sure? Follow up and accountability always walk hand in hand. Follow up is an essential key to the successful implementation of ANY plan. This plan mandates monitoring of current and future systems of management to ensure they are really effective, where "effective" would now be defined clearly - as falling within the guidelines of the Trout Management Plan. After all, what good is collecting data, then defining and implementing a new plan if you aren't going to monitor its overall effectiveness over time against your high level goals? Then, if it's not working - it falls back to AGFC to fix it or do something else. Fourth - It addresses issues that specifically and undoubtedly degrade the fishery. For example - inadequate dissolved oxygen content, silt entering the river system, and habitat degradation to name a few. Fifth - It promotes a "One size does NOT fit all" mentality. In the plan, each individual body of water will be treated as a separate entity. As we all know, what might work in one section of the river may not necessarily work in another. This plan takes that into consideration. Sixth - Promotes Goodwill. The plan attempts to inspire an atmosphere of trust, openness and cooperation. They're coming right out and saying, "We want you to help guide our direction, and work with us to get there." This open, cooperative attitude speaks volumes - not just about their basic good intentions, which are not in question, but about what they're willing to do to PROVE their good intentions. Will it solve all problems overnight? Of course not. But, in my opinion, it's an excellent start. I commend our trout biologist, Darrell Bowman, and our Cold Water Fisheries Coordinator, Melissa Jones, for coming up with this plan. (And of course, whoever else at AGFC was involved up to this point... I just know Darrell and Melissa worked on it! :-)) What are YOUR goals? Would you like to see more fish in the river? Bigger Fish? More stocked fish - rainbow or otherwise? "Wild" fish (that sustain their own populations without stocking) It's up to us to guide them. Like the preacher says at the wedding, "Speak NOW or forever hold your peace!" :-) What can YOU do?
In Closing...
I would like to thank you all again for your continued support - you make it all worthwhile! :-) Let us know what you'd like to read about in the newsletters and how we can make your stay even better!
Remember to pray for our soldiers, and our president, as we walk through these times.
May God Bless and keep you and yours...
Until next month - Good Fishing! Julie NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES May/June 2003 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) March/April 2003 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) Jan/Feb 2003 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) Dec 2002 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) Nov 2002 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) Oct 2002 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) Sept 2002 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) Aug 2002 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) July 2002 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) June 2002 - Newsletter (Use your Browser's BACK BUTTON TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE |
