LOWER BUFFALO RIVER - My, how time gets away.
The last time I floated the terminal section of the Buffalo River from Rush to the White River was in August 1995. I made that trip with my brother Frank. That was always one of my favorite adventures and I always intended to return, but life got in the way. I glanced at my watch and saw that 18 years had passed.
I was 31 back then, still a kid, really. For that four-day float, Frank and I subsisted on one loaf of bread, one jar of peanut butter, two packages of Ramen noodles and one can of chicken. I caught 77 smallmouth bass, almost all of them big. I wrote my first feature for Outdoor Life about that trip in 1996 titled, “Taming The Wild Buffalo.” A framed copy hangs above the door at Wild Bill Outfitters, near Yellville.
Now, I’m a 49-year old father of seven, with some hard mileage on my frame. Fishing for me is more a state of being. Catching is no longer an end, but a means to a greater end. I fish to satisfy something deep within that nothing else touches. It’s a way of sharing things I love with those I love.
My son Matthew will start his final year of high school in a few weeks. He’ll go off to college and then he’ll start a career that will dominate his time. If we were ever going to float the lower Buffalo together, July 21-24 was our last chance. My daughter Amy made it a threesome.
We launched at Rush on Tuesday at about 1 p.m. Our paddles had scarcely touched the water when the clouds unleashed a torrent. Matt and Amy were in the Queen Marie, a Buffalo canoe in which I made the 1995 trip. She was shiny and new then, and she still looks darned good for her age.
I piloted a 16-foot, 9-inch Old Town Discovery from Wild Bill’s. It held one box with my bedding, tent, battery-powered air pump, battery-powered fan, ropes, stakes and assorted tools. A kitchen box contained a butane stove and fuel, metal plates, stainless steel cups, water purification equipment, utensils, seasonings, instant coffee packets and freeze-dried meals. A cooler held three big ribeye steaks, ground beef, a pack of Hebrew National franks, sliced ham, sliced beef brisket, a plastic bottle of mustard, an onion, bottled water and several cans of Mountain Dew Throwback.
A large wet bag contained our fishing tackle, clothes and a bag of charcoal.
Matthew and Amy had their tents in bedding in their boat, along with a cooler that held more drinks.
As it rained, I drifted behind a big rock and cast Zoom Tiny Lizards in junebug color. The place was near the spot where Frank and I had found a big school of ravenous smallmouths feeding under a blazing sun on a cloudless day. I caught no smallmouths there Tuesday, but I did catch a mess of magnum Ozark bass.
We camped on a gravel bar about six miles downstream. Matt grilled the steaks to perfection and washed away the pangs of adversity.
In 1995, the lower Buffalo was clear, with deep, glassy pools. Now, the pools are largely full of gravel from erosion. Algae carpets much of the streambed, and thick wads of algae float downstream. Aquatic vegetation forms large mats over large sections of water. These are the result of nutrient runoff from livestock operations and fertilized fields.
Opponents of a proposed hog farm near Mount Judea fear this kind of impact on the Buffalo, but it’s already come.
It certainly alters the way you have to fish. If you use bottom contact baits, like soft-plastics, you have to fish spots where algae is sparse. Otherwise, they get fouled with gunk. Using crankbaits is almost out of the question. I use surface baits almost exclusively.
Of the 20 or so fish I caught, two were particularly memorable. One was a 14-inch smallmouth on Day 2 that chased shad across the surface. I cast a Yum Craw Papi right in front of it, and the fish savaged it. The second was on Day 3, just above the White River confluence.Again, a smallmouth chased shad, and I cast a buzzbait in front of it. This was a 16-incher that gave my little light-action baitcaster a workout. Early in the trip, I gave Amy a spinning rig with a Heddon Torpedo, a surface plug with a prop on the back. It didn’t work for her.
For the second night, we camped at a much nicer gravel bar at a wide bend. The sky was clear for once, and a full moon rose over the far end of the bend and illuminated the bluff on the other side of the river as if spotlit from a towboat coming upstream. The effect was hauntingly beautiful.
A mockingbird tuned up sometime after midnight. It imitated a screech owl and got other screech owls to answer. Then, it mimicked a whipporwill and got a real whipporwill to sing. I didn’t think the screech owl taunt was such a good idea, frankly.
Early the next morning, Amy asked, “Daddy, can I have a bait that actually catches fish?”
I tied on a Zoom lizard and briefly explained how to use it. While she held the rod, I yanked on the line the way a smallmouth does. Thump, thump, thump, WHAM!
“Rocks feel that way, too,” I said. “Just set the hook on everything. You’ll figure out what’s real and what’s not.”
Matthew patiently tutored her, and after a couple of hours she shouted, “I caught one, Daddy!”
It was a 12-inch smallmouth, the first fish Amy ever caught by herself. She caught five more before the day was done. For nearly two days she’d been a dissatisfied and impatient passenger. After that first smallmouth, she fished fervently.
It rained throughout the trip, and we were soaked when we camped at Gray Face Bluff on the final night. From there, it was a short float to the mouth of the White River.
In 1995, Frank and I had to paddle upstream about a mile against hard current to reach my truck at Buffalo City. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Now, we merely crossed the White to Riley’s Station, where my truck waited. Riley’s charges a fee of $5 per boat to take out, and it’s money well spent.
I told Frank about it later that night.
“I don’t think I could do that again with the shape I’m in,” Frank said. He sighed and added, “We’re getting old, bro.”
Older, maybe, but somehow a smallmouth stream always makes me feel younger. As for Matthew and Amy, they said it was their best trip ever.
I intend to return. Sooner than 18 years.
Sports, Pages 35 on 07/28/2013