Little Red Noverber 2008

July 2, 2008 FISHING REPORT - LITTLE RED RIVER

July 2, 2008 FISHING REPORT - LITTLE RED RIVER


FISHING REPORT - Little Red River


The Greers Ferry Power House is releasing water around the clock. The water is very off-color due to the silt content caused by high lake levels. Our beautiful lake is up into the trees and over parking lots. The good news is that the lake level is dropping about 4/10ths of a foot per day. Camping areas that were under water are now open for business. The bad news is that all that off-color water is coming into the Little Red River. It's tough enough fishing in high water but water that is high and clear as coffee is challenging. The Greers Ferry Lake level is 473 feet above mean sea level. That's 12 feet above the preferred maximum of 461.5 feet above MSL and 14 feet below top flood pool of 487 feet above MSL. The water coming through the dam is averaging 51 degrees fahrenheit with 8.0 mg/l of dissolved oxygen (good numbers). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Little Rock District, told me that our water releases will be reduced from 24 hours per day to 12 hours when the upper four impoundments (Beaver Lake, Table Rock Lake, Bull Shoals Lake and Norfork Lake) average 70% full. Due to heavy rainfall last weekend, the upper four lakes went from 81% full to 85.8% full. Greers Ferry lake is 44% full. The estimated date for the reduction in water releases is mid-July.

Water released through the Greers Ferry dam drives generators that create hydroelectricity. Where does all this electricity go, Jed? Excellent question! This power is sold by Southwestern Power Administration headquartered in Tulsa. SWPA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Energy and is one of four power marketing administrations in the United States. SWPA markets hydroelectric power in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas from 24 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects. You may quote me.

Aquatic insect hatches continue with blue winged olive mayflies, sulphur mayflies, pale morning dun mayflies and midges being the primary players. I have not seen any caddis flies coming off in a couple of weeks. Fishing dry flies in high water is problematic. When the river level is lower in July, tie on an adams (#14-#24), sulphur (ephemerella dorothea #16-#18), PMD (pale morning dun - ephemerella infrequens #18-#20), BWO ( blue winged olive - baetis - #18-#20), midge (chironomidae - #22 or smaller in cream or black) or Ed Story's crackleback (#12). The best sub-surface fly for our high water is the San Juan worm (#14-#18 - worm brown, fl. orange, red or peach). When drift fishing from a boat, you will need 12-15 feet of leader and tippet with enough split shot to get the worm down to the streambed and a large strike indicator to float it all. When the river level drops to a wadeable level, try a sowbug (#14-#16 uv tan, uv gray or olive), zebra midge (#16-#22 red, black or copper), red @ss soft hackle (#14-#18), copper john (#16 red, copper or green), pheasant tail (#16) or wooly bugger (#8-#12 olive, black or copper).

The Little Red Fly Shop continues it's customer appreciation discounts with 20% off all Fishpond products through the month of July. Fishpond makes a high quality line of chest/lumbar packs, soft sided coolers, wading staffs, belts, etc.

If you have questions about anything in this report, please direct them to me at the Little Red Fly Shop of Heber Springs, Arkansas. My numbers are #888-442-4022 toll free or #501-887-9988. You can send an e-mail to me at shop@littleredflyshop.com. I'm Jed Hollan, mgr.

River Information
The Greers Ferry Dam has 2 electric generators. The depth of the Little Red River is determined by the generation. There is no generation schedule. Electricity is generated as power is required by customers or to reduce Greers Ferry Lake level (flood prevention). The amount of lake water flowing through the generators and into the river is measured in CFS (cubic feet per second). Operating only one generator creates about 2500-3900 CFS. The speed of the water is determined by the CFS. The higher the CFS, the faster the flow. Our shop is 10 miles below the dam. Water released by one generator should arrive here in about 5 hours depending on the CFS. Water flow from both generators arrives here in 3-4 hours depending on the CFS. When wade fishing, always keep an eye on a substantial stream side object (boulder, tree, etc.) and depart the stream immediately when faster water arrives.

One of my Favorite Views On the River

Map of the Little Red River

Let's get right to it, then. Forty-pounds, four ounces -- a quarter pound heavier than a sack of topsoil you'd pick up down at your local garden supply shop. It was caught on a 1/32oz olive green maribou jig and was fought with an ultralight rod and reel loaded with 4lb test line. This photo (by Gregg Patterson) shows the big brown as well as Howard "Rip" Collins, the man who pulled it from the Little Red River near Swinging Bridge.

So here's the story in a nutshell. At about 11:00 a.m. Saturday, May 9 1992, 64-year-old Heber Springs Resident Rip Collins was fishing with buddy Van Cooper of Forrest City in a boat on the Little Red. He tied a tiny olive-green maribou jig to his 4lb test line and three casts later he hooked this big female. It took only five minutes to get her to the gunwales (she must have practically given herself up), but they had to flag down another fisherman to borrow a landing net to get her into the boat.

At about 12:30pm, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) officers Tom Bly and Sam Lester saw the fish and offered to weigh it and verify the weight for the record books. Collins (an avid catch-and-release proponent) declined, since hanging this heavy a fish by the gills on the hook scale at the dock would probably have killed it. Collins used an algorithm employed by makers of replica fish to estimate the weight. (length) * (girth in front of the dorsal fin) * (girth behind the dorsal fin) * 800=weight in pounds. This formula yielded 33.7 pounds, about five pounds short of the record at that time.

He decided that there was no sense in killing the fish if it wasn't close to a record; but he wanted his son to see the trophy-sized fish, so he confined it temporarily in a 3x6-foot wire cage under his son's boat dock.

On the following Monday, the AGFC guys were able to obtain from the US Fish and Wildlife Service an oxygenated tank truck , the kind routinely used for transporting fish from hatcheries to rivers and lakes. Collins was persuaded then to allow the fish to be taken to the Heber Springs post office where it was weighed on a postal scale and the weight verified by wildlife officer Monty Carmikle.

The fish was then returned to the Little Red, but the stresses of the ordeal had been too great. Despite the efforts of numerous friends, public wildlife management employees and even a local veterinarian, the big brown died Monday afternoon. Sam Lester of the AGFC said that the fish might have lost as much as ten percent of its body weight due to stress between the time it was caught and the time it was weighed. Collins was quoted in Arkansas Wildlife magazine as saying, "I'm glad to have the record, but if I had to do it over again, I'd release the fish... It's like losing a best friend."