Magical Waters

So Dry Run Creek will  forever hold a special place in my heart, not only because it's Amazingly Beautiful and chocked full of fish, but because it's where my Dad first put a fly rod in my hand. I have lots of memories from the creek as a kid. I love passing along the magic of this place to kids today. Yesterday, I was giving to the shot to take young Jack from Ann Arbor, Mi. up to the creek for a little fun. Jack really wanted to learn and listened super well. His mends were on point. He had his roll cast and high stick nymphing down pat. I bet he probably caught 40 fish! We could not have asked for better weather. It was just remarkable outside to be the middle of February!

super shad

So here are a few more of the pic from the group trip Jamie and I ran up on Norfork over the weekend...These are just a few of the amazing fish that these boys managed to bring in. Did you see that brookie's belly? bulging from shad!

Shad-Tastic

Over the weekend Jamie and I guided a group of guys on the Norfork for a shad kill. In case you are not familiar with the shad kill, its a crazy event that can take place on the Norfork and Bull Shoals tailwaters. It usually requires lots of generation and super cold conditions. We got really lucky. One unit running on the Norfork and copious amounts of shad being shot through the turbine!  We had an incredible time with this group of guys. Tons of fish were caught on floating shad patterns!  We had grand slams both days by multiple fellows in the trip. Here are just a few close up shots of floating shad in some fish mouths! More post on the weekend will be following soon!

Cabin Fever

Today I went out with my man Tony for a little while. With the wintery weather we had yesterday and as cold as its been we both had a bit of cabin fever. The river was running two gens but we had some good clouds and decided to go ahead and see if we couldn't turn a few yellow bellies. Our action was great first drift we turned three nice fish and each landed one. We then preceded on down river still turning some nice fish but most of them wouldn't eat. Just angry drive by's and flashes. We stabbed a few more but nothing huge. We both were just glad to get our tug on a little bit on a cold grey winter day!

Marshal and Frank...Spanking Bank!

On Friday Rouse and I ran a group trip. He took Tom and Michael. I guided Marshal and Frank. It was a great overcast drizzly day so we decided to spank the banks and look for a big brown. Guess what, We found some! Man, the action was great. We had some serious action! Fish were swiping on our fly pretty often. We didn't  make connection with all of them, but we sure had a blast. At one point we had a solid ten pound fish try to eat... twice! It was nuts! Once the water finally caught us our bite slowed down a little but but that's to be expected! Here are a couple of the great fish from the day!

For your viewing pleasure!

Wright Angles : Little Red River January '12 from THE ORBANS on Vimeo.



This is a sweet Video my man Cliff and his lady Mandi made about their fishing trip in Jan. Great music by Cliff's Band the Orbans! Hope you guys enjoy it!

Dry Fly Fishing

A lot of people overlook my favorite bug...The March Brown, also known in some parts of the country as brown drakes. The Little Red River can offer some amazing dry fly fishing in the Spring. And I'm not talking about little tiny dries, I'm talking about big Nasty dries! In fact With the mild winter Ive seen some great numbers of  these big brown may fly's already skating around. The best action should be from late Feb into April but the month of March being the best. If you want to try and get in on possibly one of my favorite things this river has to offer this spring. Book your dates fast because they wont last long!

"If your too big for a small fish, your probably too small for a big fish"

On Sunday I got the chance to fish with Ron for the first time. We had received torrential rains on Thursday and Friday. We really only had one option and that was the dam. Conditions seemed great for some streamer fishing. One unit of water for a couple of hours and some cloudy skies. Ron did great. He turned and stuck several fish over twenty inches, but we had some hook set techniques we were still learning about. We did not end up landing any monster browns, but he did land this little gem. He was super excited because it was his first Little Red River Brown! The water dropped out and the browns stopped chasing flies so we switched to a differnt technique. Fishing was killer. Ron probably landed at least 80 rainbows and several nice brook trout. Even though we did not land our big brown, we had a blast spending some time in the boat together and at the end of the day, the thing to remember is " If you are too big for a small fish, your probably to small for a big fish"

Eddie Time

Yesterday I got the chance to fish with my man Eddie for a few hours in the afternoon. Afternoon hours on the river can be super nice. Yesterday was a blue bird day and by the number of trailers at the ramp, several other people thought it was going to be a good day to be on the water as well! We caught some fish but we worked hard for every one of them. We actually got several really nice rainbows and even had a big one that got away! Regardless of the conditions its always a pleasure to get to have a little aqua therapy with my main man Eddie!

Last of the Lou.

Monday I fished with Doug and Joe. It was the last day of the trip for the boys so we decided since conditions were exactly the same as the past few day....crappy, we would just go do some nymphing for a while. Just boat a bunch of fish and have some smiles!  It was awesome. The nymph bite was crushing it! Joe even landed this sweet brown on a sow bug! After lunch we decided to give streamers one more go. Doug was the only guy who had not landed a brown on streamer ( mind you it was his first time attempting) He had several whacks throughout the week and even lost a few so I made it my mission to get him one. The bite was good. Joe landed several nice browns and Doug eventually met his goal! It was a great way to end a great trip for the boys!

Stone-age!

This is one of the boys we guided from the St. Louis crew. The only day I fished with Stone we spent the morning nymphing and catching some rainbows. We landed a few browns in the afternoon on streamers but nothing huge. Mickey floated Stone one day in his drift boat and this was his personal best fish of the trip! Really a solid fish! Nice work Stone and Mickey on this one!

Ryan takes the cake

So I've skipped a day or two of real hard fishing and jumped to the day I took my boy Ryan McCarty and and Doug. Lets just say the morning had a rough start due to some "technical" problems. We drove to a super amazing place and tried to launch our boats off something that is similar to a ramp... that is a whole separate story, though. We eventually managed to find some nice browns! I bet we had 7 or 8 solid fish over 20 inches eat our fly. We just could not stay connected to them. We even had a monster brown come up and crush a mouse! It was nuts. Finally at the end of the day Ryan landed this pig. Turned out  to be the fish of the day!

Part I

Our St. Lou crew was supposed to arrive Thursday morning and be ready to fish by 9 a.m. Weather kept them socked in until well into the afternoon. It was supposed to be our only cloudy day of the trip so we really wanted to get them on the water. We ended up putting the boats in with just a few hours of day light left. It was good. It took the boys a few minutes to get dialed in ,but once they did we were rocking! We missed a few browns, landed a few browns, and even landed about a 4 pound pickerel!  ( which I usually hate ..but he was huge!). I fished with David and Joe S. Here are a few grip and grins they earned on day one!

The St. Lou Crew

For the past few years Jamie Rouse Fly Fishing Adventures has guided a crew of guys from St. Louis. We have alternated guiding them on the White and Little Red.  This year we stayed on the home water. Conditions were less than perfect. High Sun and lots of water that was bouncing all over the board. We persevered though  and gave the boys all we could give them. They worked hard and got some good rewards. Here are just a few posts with some of the highlights seen in my boat over the past few days! These are a couple of Big-N-Tasties Mickey tied up!