Dally's Ozark Fly Fisher
The Waters of the Ozarks
There are many places that can rightly lay claim to being a fly fisher's paradise.
We know, we have fished many of them and love them too from the stark desert of the San Juan, the soaring beauty of the Rockies, salty tang of the flats, Alaska's glacial green waters, and the wilderness plateaus of Tasmania.
But there are reasons we moved to the Ozarks and call the White River system home, in part that its off the radar. The White isn't in every magazine, or every second video clip on YouTube.
Tales of monster White River brown trout are well established but fewer people know how good the average brown trout is, or that 30 fish days are good but not spectacular. Or of our caddis hatches, and phenomenal terrestrial and streamer fishing. They don't know the beauty of the limestone bluffs in the evening sun or the sight of the flowering dogwood in spring, floating like white clouds among intense emerald green.
We know, we have fished many of them and love them too from the stark desert of the San Juan, the soaring beauty of the Rockies, salty tang of the flats, Alaska's glacial green waters, and the wilderness plateaus of Tasmania.
But there are reasons we moved to the Ozarks and call the White River system home, in part that its off the radar. The White isn't in every magazine, or every second video clip on YouTube.
Tales of monster White River brown trout are well established but fewer people know how good the average brown trout is, or that 30 fish days are good but not spectacular. Or of our caddis hatches, and phenomenal terrestrial and streamer fishing. They don't know the beauty of the limestone bluffs in the evening sun or the sight of the flowering dogwood in spring, floating like white clouds among intense emerald green.
Norfork Tailwater is smaller and more intimate than the White, perhaps more beautiful, and its middle stretches locked away by a relative lack of access to waders, but prime for a float and wade trip.
Norfork offers great variety, not only between its flat pools, riffle, and pocket water, islands and runs, but here is one of those rare rivers where you have a decent shot at all 4 trout species, rainbows, browns, brook trout and cutthroat on the same day.
Fewer still know we fish all year, our trout not shut down by falling water temperatures still as hungry and active as in the summer months, when you can be fishing the famous shoals alone, or that even in flood conditions the waters run clear and clean through Bull Shoals Dam and the fish will eat.
If the White River is a mythical mysterious place, then our "local secrets" are just that, truly hidden gems to majority of the fly fishing world. The Ozark creeks
winding their way through hill and holler, full of bright and ebullient bream and the more elusive and prized native smallmouth are truly a treasure.
The dogwood flowers mean to many Ozark fly fishers the time to chase white bass, which run up and over creek shoals like salmon, hard-pulling and feisty.
There are lunker largemouth in the lakes and streams, if you know where to look, and huge carp over lake flats and most challenging in crystal clear spring creeks.
The lakes are barely touched by the fly fisher, and hold big bream, largemouth, smallmouth, walleye, white bass, hybrids and stripers.
Our focus and passion is trout, but we enjoy these other opportunities as well, and we love sharing them with you.
winding their way through hill and holler, full of bright and ebullient bream and the more elusive and prized native smallmouth are truly a treasure. The dogwood flowers mean to many Ozark fly fishers the time to chase white bass, which run up and over creek shoals like salmon, hard-pulling and feisty.
There are lunker largemouth in the lakes and streams, if you know where to look, and huge carp over lake flats and most challenging in crystal clear spring creeks.
The lakes are barely touched by the fly fisher, and hold big bream, largemouth, smallmouth, walleye, white bass, hybrids and stripers.
Our focus and passion is trout, but we enjoy these other opportunities as well, and we love sharing them with you.
