The Arkansas Tailwater July 5th through July 9th

  I quite often get asked the questions as to rather or not I really like guiding, or if I ever want to just grab the rod out of my clients hand and catch the fish myself? I usually answer by telling the story of a time awhile back when I was fishing in the Reservoir Drive area. I was walking up the bank and I looked across the river and saw a guy that looked as if he had just been released from prison. Tattoos, long hair and a white muscle shirt (built like he could break me in two), the type of person that if you saw walking up your side of the street, you would probably cross and high tail it out of there. I went up about fifty yards and had landed several fish when I heard the guy shriek with joy, sounding almost like a three year old at 5:00A.M. on Christmas morning.” I got one, I got one” he started screaming and then a large expletive followed by laughing when the fish came off half way in. I listened to him giggle for a few minutes and when someone walked by on the trail up above he started “with utter joy” to tell the stranger that he had hooked a monster but it came off half way in. He wasn’t even fly fishing but just listening to someone hook a fish and hearing the joy that it brought this rather rough man reminded me of why I started fly fishing myself.

   Being the big fish snob that I have become, I sometimes forget the joys of catching all sizes of fish but guiding usually seems to remind me of the joy fishing is supposed to bring, even if the clients aren’t as perfect as I expect them to be.hehe. One of the guide trips over the weekend had a client battle a 16 inch tank of a rainbow for several minutes and after landing it he turned to me and, a little shakily said “thank you Connell that is the first time I have ever had to fight a fish”. Several of my clients this weekend landed their first ever fish on a fly rod and almost every client was giddy with a new love for fly fishing. Finishing up those kinds of weekends reminds me of why I find guiding so satisfying, oh and the enormous tips are pretty awesome also.

  Cat and I made it out tonight for a few hours and as typical had a lot of fun. Fishing right now is good but I would not put it in the easy category. With the lower flows, the fish are getting a lot of time to examine both your flies and your drifts and any extra line on the water or dragging of the flies and the fish will be laughing at you. Cat had the largest and the most landed tonight with her prize fish being an 18inch fatty. The water was brought up to 250 today and was just slightly off colored, just enough to switch to 4x fluoro. Lots of hooked fish and  most coming unbuttoned on the way in seems to back up my idea that the fish mouths are still very soft right now. Don’t get frustrated but just enjoy the fish you are actually hooking. The pictures are of a few of the clients over the weekend and Cats 18incher at the bottom. As always, thanks for reading and enjoy the water……Connell