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Dave, his daughter Ashton and I started the holiday weekend off right with a float on the Elk River, and the smallmouth didn't disappoint! Dave with a nice smallmouth that jumped completely out of the water and took his Wiggle Minnow on the way back down! It was Ashton's first time to chase smallmouth with a fly rod, but she got the hang of it pretty quickly! Ashton with her first smallmouth bass on a fly rod--congrats Ashton, well done! The river was in great shape and relatively uncrowded (at least by Elk River standards), so we took our time...

Dave and I camped on the Norfork recently and got into some great dry fly fishing! The crane flies were coming off and the trout were definitely looking up! One of several nice cutthroats we caught on dry flies. Dave fishing in the early morning fog. The fishing was great...and so was the eating! A nice Norfork rainbow. We also hooked several nice browns! We were just a brook trout shy of a grandslam! Cutthroats love to eat dry flies!

In addition to some nice white bass, I hooked a small hybrid and striper today. Sadly, I also watched a couple of bait fishermen keep at least double their legal limit of hybrids (which is 3 per day, hybrids and striped bass combined for Beaver Lake), and I would've called the Arkansas Game and Fish Poaching Hotline (1-800-482-9262), but I went for an unintentional swim this morning and soaked my phone.

The white bass fishing was hot on Sunday before the storm front moved through, and the river levels only bumped up a little with the rain, so the fishing should continue to be good all this week!A switch rod comes in very handy for covering lots of water during white bass season. Another nice whitie on the switch rod! Dave is originally from Oklahoma, so he's noodled a few catfish in his day, but this is his first one on a switch rod!

The hybrids and white bass were very cooperative this morning, making me more than a little late for work! Grey and white and all white Clousers were working best for us.We've scheduled another "McFlyShop Staff Meeting" for tomorrow morning, so if you show up at the shop right at 10 and we're not open yet, please accept my apology in advance! For some reason during white bass season, our stated "Hours of Operation" become more of a suggestion than a hard rule!