The Arkansas Tailwater February 26, 2113

  Hello all and as always thanks for reading. Was really busy last week with the soccer tourney coming to town and was not able to fish, so was really looking forward to getting on the water today. Was sure excited to see the clouds this morning, the warmer days seem to be bringing out the crowds. Cat and I fished with a friend today and thought fishing was good but definitely not easy. We wanted to fish the new improvements and so we started just above the Nature Center. Didn’t see anything moving the first half an hour or so but at about 11:00a.m., the midges started hatching and the fish went to town. The stretch just above the flag hole was full of feeding fish. I hooked several and landed about half of them. Jim moved up across from me and hooked a couple in just a few minutes; he landed a nice 18 or 19 incher. We moved up river pretty quickly because we wanted to cover a lot of ground. We landed several out of the Glory hole and continued to move upstream. We got all the way up to Peyton’s place and that is where the excitement started. Cat moved into the main run and spotted a piggy right away. A couple casts with no takes and she then made a slight change to her setup. First cast and BOOM!!  I could not believe how smart this fish was it took her straight into the rocks and was bumping the rocks trying to break the line. She continued to bounce around as to not let the bow get the angle that it needed to break her off. She maneuvered the fish through the weir and I breathed a quick sigh of relief. She finally had fish into slower water and she was able to net it up, a beautiful 22 inch rainbow. Cat would tell you that it was her expertise and only her expertise that landed that fish today.  What I would have to add is that she has been fishing one of my Winstons since Christmas when she broke her Z-Axis. Is it a coincidence that Cat has landed two of her largest fish over that time? Is it the great Connell juju from my Winston? Or is it just that the girl ROCKS?

  Well if that were a multiple choice question there would be no wrong answers, just arguments waiting to happen (hehe). We moved back down and hooked fish in almost every spot we stopped. Even fishing my one of my other Winstons, I did not sniff anything close to Cat’s twenty two incher today. Thank goodness for Cats modesty so I was still able to thoroughly enjoy my day, even with only a twenty in the net.  Fish today were keying in on the SOL, black tube midge, juju bee and the True blood. Tried huevo’s for a while with no success, maybe it was more my lack of confidence in that fly. If you are seeing fish and they are not taking your stuff, try removing your indicator. We found quite a few indicator shy fish today. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy your time on the water. Connell, Cat, Winston and The Drift Fly Shop…….