There was a time when my fishing trips were planned weeks in advance. That’s necessary when you live 120 curvy miles away from your favorite river.
When you are almost three hours from making your first cast, you rise at 4 a.m. And when you get to the river, you stay for 8 to 12 hours, depending on time of year.
Now with a home 800 yards from the Norfork River, there are lots of small windows of opportunity. You don’t feel badly for just fishing a couple of hours either before or after a day of work.
If the weather is not perfect, you don’t go. And if the bite is off, you might quit early. There is always tomorrow when you live a short walk from the river. But, of late, both the weather and the generation schedules have meshed for great winter wade fishing opportunities. It’s delightful. The fish have cooperated, too.
Heck, with technology and decent cell service on the river, I can do a 30-minute radio spot from a log in the river.
If it’s the White River, the only issue is when a guide and his 40 horse jet race past during a radio show. I can stand the wake, but it does kill the audio.
It reminds me of doing radio with Chuck Barrett 20 years ago when my daughter Sarah played college soccer in Oklahoma. That was when Houston Nutt allowed live football practice reports. Barrett talked to me twice a day with coaches blowing whistles for background noise.
I begged to be released from a Thursday practice report. I wanted to attend one of Sarah’s final college games. I missed all of her Saturday games because of conflicts with Arkansas football. Chuck said, “Go, you can still do the practice report. We won’t say where you are, just at the field.”
So I stood at the corner flag at the soccer field in Tahlequah, away from the rest of the crowd. Sarah was taking a free kick just a few feet away when the radio station called. She glanced my way, knowing exactly what I was doing and smiled.
Then came Chuck’s perfect introduction. Part of it: “Clay is at the field. Paint the picture.”
So I did, with mention that Matt Jones was in fine form for the week’s road trip, all true. A whistle blew twice as the referee called an end to the first half and I finished the report. I’m told it made for amazing sound on the radio.
There have been times I’ve given the listeners my true location and painted the picture. The Norfork River can be awesome this time of year. With no leaves on trees, it’s easy to spot a pair of eagles watching for their lunch, a trout that makes a mistake with a lazy rise.
I’m now comfortable saying I’m actually on my day off, fishing the Norfork or the White. There was one report from under an overhanging bank. A 20 mph breeze would have ruined the audio from the cell phone without such protection. I hunkered down and did a perfect radio segment.
As I came back to the river, a fly fisher from Maine, met on the river just minutes before, asked where I’d gone. He shook his head in disbelief as I said I’d done statewide radio.
“Dadgum cell phones,” he said. “They can ruin a good day of fishing.”
Perhaps, but they can also provide freedom.
There have been a few fishing windows with the phone turned off in the last three weeks. There’s been some low water on my Baxter County rivers, so rare of late to almost rate as unexpected. The cancellation of the Texas Bowl provided several fishing windows.
There was an afternoon on the Norfork, followed the next day with a trip to the lower area of Bull Shoals State Park on the White River. Both days there was morning generation to wipe out more than half of the day, followed with low water for the afternoon.
That discourages fly fishers from making a long drive. I had the river to myself to wade.
Fish were caught. I have a general idea how many were caught — in the dozens — but it’s best not to count.
I was coming out of the river at Bull Shoals State Park when a man from Iowa pulled into the parking lot with a travel trailer. He was going to set up camp for one week. I left him a sample of the root beer colored midges that worked that day.
“Fish the soft water outside the faster seams with the fly set 24 inches under a tiny white indicator,” I told him. “I caught my share.”
There was one big brown that day. It wasn’t measured, but it was way over 20 inches.
I had a picture of the trout in my net for proof. I did not handle such a majestic fish. It was released after just flicking the size 18 fly out of its top lip.
That was the best brown landed since March. The man from Iowa put it in perspective.
“So it’s your best since covid hit?” he said.
Amazing, that’s where we are at now. Everything is “since covid hit.”
Maybe soon, we can say it’s the best “post covid.” And instead of laying my midges on a parking lot timber for a stranger from Iowa or Maine, I can put it in a hand. Or maybe I can shake the hand of a new friend made on the river.
This is all to say that I have it good to start 2021. I have a great place to write and my happy place nearby to sneak off to fish for a few hours on a pretty winter day.
The guy from Iowa told me as he popped out of his truck that he was ready for a few days away from work. He said the fish don’t have to cooperate. A slow day on the river still beats working, right?
If it’s really slow, I just go back to work.