New Article: Groundhog Day
- This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated Jan 12, 2014 at 11:12 pm by
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ICE encased the gunnels of the long white jon boat as we motored into position beneath the looming shadow of Bull Shoals Dam near Mountain Home, Arkansas. It was Groundhog Day. When, bundled like polar explorers, we loaded up in the pre-dawn darkness, the mercury in the thermometer had threatened to disappear. We stashed our waving fly rods and prepared our flesh flies by head lamp…
Very cool.
I was there for the opener last year. And several years past. Last weekend, the Ozarks had a good cold snap and the shad kill was on.
Of course the C&R section blow Bull Shoals is still closed, but the fish will still eat farther down, but less concentrated. Two or three days after shad were coming through Bull Shoals Dam, they started coming through the Norfork Dam.
It is pretty much unpredictable and it is difficult to set yourself up for the shad kill. Four years ago, several of us went down to fish “the opener” at BSD. We hired JimmyT and drifted the C&R area below BSD. I nabbed a 22 in brown on the first drift using a white wooly bugger. I used up all my luck early on that trip.
Even if you are there and get a big drop in temps, you still can only hope that shad come through the dam. There’s no guarantee. Look for the gulls diving the water.
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