The Cotter Experience

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While we were fishing on Wednesday, and the sun was out, Sandy drove in to Mountain Home to see if there was any color on the trees. In past trips, the town was full of maples and other briliantly colored trees this time of year. Up to a couple of weeks ago, the color forecast looked great. The rain ruined it. Sandy said she only saw 4 trees with any decent color on them. We drove back into town the next day, and even those trees were in bad shape. The rain stripped a lot of leaves, and the constant cloudiness over the past week or two prevented good color from forming on most trees. So.... there are no pictures of tree color. SO... I posted above some pictures of typical tree color from previous years to see Arkansas color

I forgot to take a picture of the fish. This photo is from last spring, but the trout we kept were larger if anything than these. Overall, it was a good three days fishing, even with the rain.

I saw one boat going out with the people in full rain gear. They will have to use bait like worms or corn to catch anything in the muddy water.

Our rig. The lower campground here got a little soggy, but the roads and the pads are gravel.

This is their dock. The photo was taken this morning after a day and a half of heavy rain. It is now muddy. If the rain stops, it will clear in about two days. In the background is the bridge over the river on highway 62B, leading into downtown Cotter.

We always stay at this campground. If we don't bring the trailer, we stay in one of their cabins. The owners are a man and his mother, who are very nice. I highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to fish. We always use Lonnie Cox as our guide. He was literally born beside the river, and knows it like the back of his hand.

I had to put a picture of me in the blog! Blue sky means it is Wednesday afternoon. On this day, we caught well over 100 fish, most in the 11-14 inch range, all rainbows except a few small browns. Brown trout in this river must be 24 inches or longer to be legal to keep. We caught some this size last spring, but released them. Most fish were lip hooked, and we released them without handling them, using pliers to remove the hook outside the boat so the fish just dropped back into the water.

This is my buddy, Ed. We go fishing on the river here twice a year with a guide for three days, spring and fall. Hopefully we will be able to continue this for another 10 or 15 years or more.

It had been raining in the Ozarks for a week or more. Beaver Lake and Table Rock Lake are on the White River above Bull Shoals. I fish the White river about 15 miles below Bull Shoals dam. Normally, with this much rain, they would be running all 8 power generators wide open to lower the lake level , which is now about 18 feet above normal. They are only running 3 generators because the cotton fields down river are all flooded. They are hoping the fields will dry out so they can harvest, so they are not letting the river flood them.

We stopped on a gravel bar in the middle of the river for lunch. Note that the water is very clear. The rain had been so light, it didn't ruin the river conditions. Blue sky means it is Wednesday afternoon.

OK, I already posted the results of the first day. The photo above shows overall weather conditions that day. It was heavy clouds with occasional misty drizzle.

The second day, we woke to the sound of rain on the roof. I had told the guide to not show up if it was raining and looked like it was going to continue to rain. About 11:30, I looked at the weather radar, and the storm front was just barely past us. There was a chance that we might get in a half day fishing. So I had the park owner call our guide to see if he would be interested in a half day trip. He was, and showed up in 30 minutes. We fished, again only with artificials (spoons and rapalas) and we caught perhaps 30 fish that afternoon. The third day. it was supposed to be sunny and clear. It was cloudy until about 11:00 and then the sun started to come out. See above.