For decades the trout in the tail waters below Bull Shoals Dam in Arkansas’s White River have been known to threaten many a world record – especially in the brown trout realm. But today it was all about Rainbows – and pretty big ones too.

First let me say that fishing the White River is old school fishing.  You won’t see many fly rods.  I would estimate the ratio of spin to fly gear to be 100:1.  Most people are looking for dinner and little else.  In this river the trout don’t have many natural predators.  Man and maybe an occasional blue heron are really their only threats and as such they tend to spread out over the entire river like a big playground.  On this day our guide, Dwayne Beard, had us using spinning tackle with simple hook and sinker rigs with gulp minnows which are about as close to feeling and looking like the real thing as I’ve ever seen.

How did we do?  Well, we topped our previous record of 21 fish for a State with 24 total (23 rainbows and 1 brown).  Dad caught the big rainbow of the day which weighed in at a little over 3 pounds but Taylor had two that came in a close 2^nd and 3^rd.  We did leave 30 minutes at the end of the morning to head out of the catch & release section to see if we might catch two small trout for dinner.  Guess what our guide suggested we use?  Good old fashioned Green Giant Niblet Corn.  20 minutes later we had two small 10” trout for tonight’s supper. 

For those who are curious, here’s the total fish count so far.

Total Fish Caught:      151  (Dad: 83; Taylor: 68)
Catch & Release:       149     
Fish for Dinner:              2