Flashback to trout

Christmas outings feature fish, solitude

Although Rusty Pruitt caught some decent brown trout on the White River during the holidays, he and his partners mostly caught small rainbows.
Although Rusty Pruitt caught some decent brown trout on the White River during the holidays, he and his partners mostly caught small rainbows.

— While the rest of the state has been hunting ducks and deer, Rusty Pruitt of Bryant has had some of the world’s best trout water to himself.

Pruitt, a Saline County bank officer, is known in northern Arkansas’ business community for his “lightning strike” fishing trips on the White River. It is said that Wapsi Fly in Mountain Home named its line of Lightning Strike products after him. In the 1990s, Pruitt often stopped at Rim Shoals for an hour or so to get his mind right before work. He simply pulled his waders over his suit and went after it.

“That’s where I went when I first moved up there and started learning how to fish,” Pruitt said. “It was only 20 minutes from my house, so I could go down there for a couple of hours before work. In the summer, if daylight was at 5:30, I could be there at 6 and fish until 7 or 7:30. I’d get my stuff on, sprint down to this place and catch five or six fish before I had to go to work.”

He often spent his lunch hours there, too.

“I’d have my dress pants under my waders. I’d open my collar and tuck my tie into my shirt,” Pruitt recalled. “Fishing guides would float by, and I’d hear people say, ‘Wow, this fly fishing really is a gentleman’s sport!’ ”

As much as Pruitt loves fishing the White in the summer, he likes it even better in late fall and winter. The fishing is usually very good, and even the most popular spots are often deserted. That’s how it was Dec. 23 when Pruitt joined Josh Wilson and Eric Wilson for a couple of days at the Gruenhaus Fish Camp. River flow was low and mild, and Pruitt said the fishing was great.

“I took them down to The Narrows, right there at the islands,” Pruitt said. “I gave Eric some lessons real quick, and I had him drifting the Flashback through that stuff in no time.”

The Flashback is usually the only fly pattern that Pruitt uses on the White and North Fork rivers. It’s a subdued pattern with a bit of tinsel that mimics common trout forage in the rivers. It usually requires a precise presentation achieved by placing a small split shot a certain distance up the line. Josh Wilson ignored the split shot specifics and got by instead with a generous case of beginner’s luck.

“I gave him my big 6-weight [fly rod], and he went to the chute below the islands and starting whaling away on the big ones,” Pruitt said. “All he was doing was dragging across still water, across the riffle and raising it up. The weight should have been higher. It was just above the Flashback, but the fish were nailing it as it was coming up.”

They went back the next day. A few fishermen were there, so the group hiked to the bottom of the island. Pruitt hoped to see brown trout spawning in the shoals, but they were scarce. Still, he managed to catch some respectable browns in the 16- to 18-inch range.

“Probably the biggest one I caught was close to 18 inches,” Pruitt said. “I caught four browns in a row that were about 16 to 18 inches, but 90 percent of the fish we caught weren’t - I wouldn’t say stockers - but they were not super-duper fish. They weren’t colored up very well, either. I don’t know what might cause that.”

Pruitt described that spot as a place where all the shoals funnel into a big cup, forming a run that goes to the tip of the island.

“If you get a good drift, you can stand in this one spot and catch one big bruiser after another,” Pruitt said. “It would be interesting to take some scuba gear some time to see how many fish are holding there. I’d let the guys fish it, but they’d get bored and move on. I’d come in behind them and whack them.”

Pruitt continued his trout safari last week on the Little Red River, near an area below Cow Shoals known as John’s Pocket. Cold, wet, windy weather had settled into the southern Ozarks. The river was muddy, and the fishing was uneventful.

“They hadn’t been running any water [through Greers Ferry Dam] that I knew of,” Pruitt said. “There had been a little bit of sprinkly rain, but I’ve never seen the Little Red that discolored. It seemed to me to be about 10 to 12 inches deeper than it usually is if no water’s running.”

Even so, Pruitt caught a few fish, on the Flashback, of course.

“It was freezing cold,” he said. “I stood out there and threw Flashbacks and caught little dink rainbows. I saw one guy in a canoe. He fished all around, by the docks and downstream, and then I never saw him again.”

Truth be told, that was the real beauty of it.

Even when the fishing is slow, the solitude is worth the trip.

Sports, Pages 23 on 01/06/2013

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