Rabecca and Lefty share a joke

Over the 12 years in the fly fishing biz as a writer, guide and flyshop hack Ive been lucky enough to share time with some absolute legends. A few Ive come to know well as friends, and a few I even knew before they became famous, though that could be a sheer product of luck and age. But for all that I’d never spent any time with Lefty Kreh.

Which, when I count up all the shows and events I’ve done, and the number of friends of Lefty I know _ remembering Lefty has probably taught half the fly fishing world to cast _ had left me feeling somewhat lacking. Spending some time with Lefty, even if its watching one of his classes is something no fly fishing education should be without.

Well courtesy of an invite by Adam and Phil to do a presentation on the White River for the Spring Valley Anglers’ Rod and Gun Club’s member appreciation day last Saturday, Bec and I got to spend some time with Lefty, and it was a few hours I’ll treasure.

Lefty teasing April during the class

Also along were the well known instructors/writers and photographers Cathy and Barry Beck, a lovely couple Ive know for several years, plus April Vokeywho was our connection to Adam. But giving a presentation in front of Lefty was both nerve-wracking and inspiring. You can’t believe he’s 84. He is as sharp as a tack and is a vaccum for information on fishing and fisheries. We chatted quite a bit about the current state of Norfork, a river he fished a lot with Dave Whitlock, kicked around side-arm casting instruction techniques, and modern rod design.

I also seized upon one gem of knowledge, from Lefty’s class (I wasn’t there for the class but heck how could you not listen) I think a lot of low water fly fishers on the White and Norfork are really going to enjoy on wade fishing trips.

He and Bec got on like a house on fire, talking kids, fishing and a whole bunch of other stuff. Bec can be a little shy at times but Lefty put her at ease. He’s a nice man with great  manner with people, and for one whose words are hung upon, he is a true listener, in the way of the best journalists, which if you recall is how Lefty started in the business.

We met a bunch of other great people at the club, it was great to hang out with the Becks who I’m one step closer to getting down to the White, and of course there are always good times with April, Adam, Phil and Dault. But it was extra special with Lefty.

Thanks for the memories, Lefty

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will decide September 24 on whether to expand the Norfork Tailwater Trophy Zone to 2.6 miles or 2 miles.

The AGFC proposal, developed by the river advisory commission with fisheries biologists, seemed to be rolling along swimmingly, until a couple of resort owners with the support of the Norfork and Salesville City Councils opposed the extension. That opposition is now trying to block any extension of the Trophy Zone at all

To our way of thinking returning the Norfork to a quality fishery with the type of trophy trout it was producing until only a couple of years ago will benefit all businesses on the Nofork River, and the local economy. Read more here in the Arkansas Outdoors Newsletter

We would urge everyone to take the time to support the 2.6 mile extension by writing in support to:

Letters can be sent to North Fork Trout, Fisheries Division, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, 2 Natural Resources Drive, Little Rock, AR 72205. Comments can also be e-mailed to Jeffrey S. Williams, trout management supervisor, at j_williams@agfc.state.ar.us or information@agfc.com.

Its probabloy also worthwhile sending letters to all commissioners. Click here for a list of Commission Names, Emails and Addresses.

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The chances of more misty mornings ahead are good

PROBABLY the first question I get from most fly fishers these days is “will the low water continue”. Well I learnt a long time ago on the White River system my crystal ball is defective. But I have to say the forward outlook through August-September is pretty good for wade fishing.

All three lakes are into their power pool ie their normal allocation for generation. Since the discovery of flood pools as bonus money for the Corp and power companies I reckon there is a pretty fair bet they don’t want to go too deep into pool if they can avoid it. When the money is right they will generate.

But if temperatures remain mild there is a very good chance of overnight/morning  shutdowns giving wadefishers room to play during the day. If you want to learn more about how to read generation patterns click here 

Another gorgeous White River Trout On Low Water

The past two weeks have been a lot of fun. Low water plenty of wading, and making old and new friends on the river.

Its back to the simple pleasures, water around your legs and introducing newcomers and/or relative novices to the pleasures of fly fishing. We have spent so much time on high water locked into chasing big fish this season, its been a pleasure to see the shock and joy of someone catching a trout on fly for the first time.

Holding your first fly caught trout, then watching it swim free. There's nothing like it

And then it happening again, and again. And then you ease away from your novice and let them do it all by themselves. Hard to beat that sort of fun. And the White River is that sort of river, where on your first morning you can catch 10-20-30 trout. 

Newcomers to fly fishing get a lot of positive reinfocement when they do things right courtesy of the high trout per mile counts on the White River. And unlike many other waters your not going to get punished too brutally when you get it wrong. Mistakes happen its part of the learning curve.

Get a good drift, with the right setup and you are going to catch fish. Learning how to mend your line and extend your drift, detect a take on an indicator nymphing rig, and how to hook and control a fish on fly is something you learn through experience. Its like learning golf casting a fly rod is like driving from a tee, but the rest is the short game. Its about feel and touch and the more you do it the better you get.

A low water wading trip will give you lots of those experiences. We have been variously indicator nymphing, swinging soft hackles and during the quiet part of the afternoon tossing woolly buggers to great effect.

As a guide the hardest thing is explaining not all river systems are like this.

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Unusual angles can make a picture

MODERN digital point and shoot cameras are a godsend for fly fishers capturing memories, easily quickly and at phenomenal quality, in a light and easy to carry package. Heck not only are they capable of taking the spills, stumbles and splashes of everyday fly fishing they can even shoot stunning pictures underwater.

But what the brains haven’t come up with is an extra pair of hands to hold and control the fish for the solo fly fisher. If you are like me most of the time you are fishing solor, even when you have a fishing buddy along. It might be fine dragging him off his spot for a trophy but taking shots of “everyday” pretty fish is another matter. And Bec has given orders that I’m to shoot pics of every pretty fish as inspiration for her watercolors.

So here’s a few shooting tips for fly fishers carrying point and shoots along and want some quality pics for inspiration back home.

The grip and grin of solo fly fishing _ "trout on the rocks"

FIRSTLY, the camera I’m using on these is few years old, and only 3.2 MP. The current crop of water and shock proof cameras are WAY better. Here’s a pretty good summary of what is out there, from my research (i’m way past due for a new one) the leader still seems to be either Olympus or Pentax. The Pentax might have the edge with HD video but the Olympus has the edge on images.

Whichever camera you might choose these all have great “brains” to do all the hard work, choosing apetures, speeds, white balance and all the techie stuff. I generally dial down the ISO to the lowest level, and shoot the biggest files you can, on the principle I can easily make them smaller without losing quality, but its impossible to go bigger without ruining the pic. Stick it on auto and trust the technology, worry about framing the image and the fish itself.

No matter whether you are shooting along or with a friend, I like using a rubber net to control the fish, let it relax and recover with a minimum of harm, while you go about getting out your camera, getting it it started, dealing with the rod and fly. I check the fish is upright and breathing in the net, before I start the other tasks

Be mindful too of the state of the fish, some will relax quickly and allow you to position them easily. Others go nuts splashing and flopping, these fish require a lot more care, or indeed sometimes you are better off letting them go free without a pic.

The standard approach for the solo fly fisher is usually to lay the fish on the bank or gravel bar as per the pic above. Its a little like the “grip and grin” fly fisher holding a fish shot when there is two of you. You have seen them so many times they all look the same. Plus there is a risk of hurting the fish, on dry gravel. I like to have a bedding of wet moss if possible. I really don’t like this for those “crazy” fish.

Try closeups of everyday fish to make them more interesting

Most of the current crop of waterproof cameras have a pretty wide angle lens and great capacity to shoot in close, unlike mine. But even so if you are reduced to the “trout on rocks” try something different, like focussing on the fish’s head or fins. This is the less is more style of shot, as the closer in (hence the less of the fish) the more interesting the image becomes.

Some fish are easier shot on the leader

Our crystal clear waters here on the White do make a pretty nice backdrop for photos. And some fish are best shot on the leader. Often its easier to shoot some smaller, wild fish while you lead tham up current. These aren’t my favorite type of pics, they can look a little staged but they do work. Try the close in option with these as well.

A few years back, when I was regularly shooting images for magazine plus a few other commercial gigs, I was asked to shoot a charity pet calendar, so I went researching some ideas. The best piece of advice I found was change the angle of view. We are all used to seeing pets, and kids for that matter, looking down. So try lower angles, ” at their level” to make the shots more interesting. Hence I spent a couple of weeks on my belly and the lesson hasn’t been forgotten. Try angles people don’t see very often.

Hold the camera low for a more interesting angle, the view of the riverbed was an unexpected bonus

I tend to shoot quite a few fish from this sort of angle, holding the camera low and “aiming”. Often this is a pretty good way to shoot relaxed fish, with either your hand at the tail or under the belly. Its easy to keep the fish’s gills int he water to allow it to recover then a gentle lift to show the eyes and mouth.

The only downside, if you like, is the fact you are shooting blind, so press the shutter a few times, and adjust the angles a little.

A little judicious cropping can create a new look

One of the benefits of shooting on the highest image quality is the ability to crop down large pics. Most cameras come with decent software to do this. With all the pics we put on the web here, I actually save all the pics we need and do all my editing on Photobucket.com.

Back in the day I used to play with images on Photoshop, still the icon of image editing, but the ‘bucket is relatively fast, cheap and easy, though I wish they would add a feature to allow you to rotate pictures by degrees, so its easier to square horizons. A tilted horizon is probably the most common flaw I see in point and shoot cameras, particularly when you are shooting through the back panel with polarised glasses on.

Shooting multiple images reduce the chances of these

Finally, I’m going to repeat it. Take LOTS OF PICS! Unlike the old days when I was shooting pro slide film, memory cards are huge and cheap. You can quickly cull out any duds. And if you are careful of your fish, you can shoot pics fast.  That way you increase the likeihood of getting that once in a lifetime shot.

I CAN’T think of a more quintessential mid-west fly fishing experience than a truck, a cooler, some poppers and a farm pond. To the fevered imagination of this Aussie its about as American as a drift boats, cowboys hats, cutthroats and the Rockies.

Perhaps its just John Gierach’s reveries on the subject that make me think that way. But on the other hand there is a certain goodfiness about leaving high faluting trout water, just to go screwing around in dirty brown water after lowbrow species.

Strip off the pretentions along with your vented multi-pocketed tech-shirts, your lanyards and tech vests, leave the goretex and polartec at home. Pull on a t-shirt,  turn up a country station loud, slide into some flip flops, get some cowshit between your toes.

 A pocket full of poppers and a handful of Clousers, a spool of tippet and some nippers and pliers and your good to go.

It had been a while since I’d done the farm pond thing, and I needed the change. We’d had to put off invitation after invitation from Joey all summer, not any longer. This was a family outing as it should be, with Bec, Crystal and Lynsey along for the fun.

Click on the pics for larger views.

Farm pond fun _ hybrid bluegill

Musical accompaniment

Joey and the girls playing with the locals

Meet some largemouth

Country views

More bass

Lynsey and a friend

JUMP onto the Reel Aid website now to get your ticket for the Benefit Concert in Memphis on August 7. It should be a great evening’s entertainment for a great cause.

Reel Aid is a Benefit Concert for 3 charities, Reel Recovery, Casting for Recovery, and Project Healing Waters. All three charities offer fly fishing retreats at no cost to its participants. These weekend retreats incorporate counseling, educational services and the sport of fly-fishing to promote mental and physical healing.

The goal is to raise money that is then allocated to be used in TN, MS, AR and MO to bring free fly fishing retreats to our area, for our men and women who are battling cancer or our military who are rehabilitating to attend.

 Reel Aid Benefit Concert features live entertainment by four great bands, a silent auction, a raffle, and food and beverages available for purchase.

April and Colby On The White

April Vokey gets it. Thanks to our new mate for some kind words in her blog.

 She is right though it takes a special kind of crazy to pack up and relocate thousands of miles from friends and family. Its another sort of crazy to give up civilian life and chase salmonids with this sort of obsessive singlemindedness, and try and earn a living from it.

I guess its why we hit it off so quickly and well. Though I have to say there are friends of mine all over the world going to read “intelligent sense of humor” in her description of myself and go “can’t be the same guy” LOL.

Life is short, live it well, work your butt off for the things that are important and try and ignore the trivialities.

Fish every chance you can get.

Thanks Ape!

We are working on some ladies fly fishing workshops through the Mountain River Fly Shop on October 10th and 11th. April is also going to be manning our booth at Conclave tying flies and selling her flygal gear will also be at the FFF Conclave in Mountain Home on Oct 2, 3, 4.

We will be unveiling full details on the class Monday, including pricing on the Mountain River Journal.

I had two Texans Nathan and his son Nolan on the water yesterday, for Nathan’s first time fly fishing. Nolan, who is 6, had been with Clint Wilkinson’s wife Danielle for his first fly rod outing on Dry Run Creek the previous day. Nolan is a great kid with a serious passion for the outdoors, he’s got a super-inquisitive nature, and he’s going to be a redhot hunter/fisher but the time he gets old and gray like myself.

Nathan picked it up incredibly easily, so much so it wasn’t till mid-afternoon I even realised it was his first time, I thought he’s been fly fishing for a couple of years.

I’ll just say we do have a bunch of photos to llustrate this report but they are all on Nathan’s camera since some bozo, after recharging his camera batteries managed to leave the camera on draining them completely. Nathan will be sending pics. 

With the lower water we were fishing Davy Wotton Midges all morning, just like wade fishing, with minimum of extra weight and small Thingamabobber indicators, picking up a bunch of  nice rainbows including one 16″ pig which was almost round. As we say in Australia he’d been in a “good paddock”. I think nathan appreciated the ease of the rig to cast and reconised the efficiency of the extra long drift we were achieving from the boat.

After lunch the water came higher meaning a rerig with longer leaders, more weight and a switch some attractor patterns. First off was a RubberLegs, which was promptly claimed by a very nice fish. This pattern, a western staple and introduced to me by our mate on the North Fork of the White Brian Wise, Ive been dabbling with for a bit and its been a good producer on the moderate flows. Another one for the list of flies I have to tie.

A switch to PuffBall Eggs was a winner, and down quiet bank, usually tended by bait guides rather than fly fishers, Nathan fooled a seriously big brown. I had one glimpse of this fish as it seized a moment of slack, that one second of inexperience, in otherwise a great job all day by Nathan, and shook its head and bang it was gone. It had to be 21″+ a nice trophy but White River browns learn quickly how to dispense on their way to getting big.