Slumming With the Microcaddis at Mammoth Spring RV Park

                 I’m not a fan of overvisited, public-access areas, but when I see rising trout tipping and sipping, my fly-fishing purist, virgin-remote-wilderness, not another angler in sight indignation, is quickly forgotten and I am consumed with the entomology and ichthyology of the moment—not where I am. 

                There is no ugly place to catch a trout, at least none that I’ve found.  Trout love clear, cold water, and you don’t generally find such hydrology in areas that aren’t clear and cold, too.  A couple summers ago while hiking and fishing a remote stretch of the Gallatin River in Montana, I encountered a graveyard of rusted automobiles lined up door-to-door along the bank.  I didn’t consider this oxidized scar on the landscape an ugly sight because there were too many beautiful things to offset it:  azure skies, mountains on every horizon, and clear currents of melted snow rolling over freestone.  Even in the back Urbana of Denver where the South Platte River flows through chunks of graffiti-covered slabs of concrete would I consider this geography ugly. 
            The Mammoth Spring RV Park in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas represents such a scar along the banks of the Spring River, a geological wonder created by the discharge of untold millions of gallons of pure water 70 feet deep, from one of the world’s largest aquifers.  The town of Mammoth Spring grew up around this aquifer and derived its name from it, as did the river that the aquifer created.  The first half-mile or so of the Spring River flows through Mammoth Spring.  As with other rivers that run through urban areas, you have a mixed bag of what you would expect to find along the banks.  High above the river, I stand on the balcony of the Bouncer’s cabin and stare across at a checkerboard of concrete RV pads complete with Cast Iron BBQ grills, and picnic tables.  I move my gaze from riverside development to the river below and see rising fish.
                I had seen these fish many times, but had never fished for them before.  But this morning was different for a multitude of reasons.  The conditions were unfavorable; overcast, 23 degrees and spitting a sleety rain, but despite the brutal conditions, these fish were feeding.  This was my last day to fish before returning to work.  Tomorrow would bring a ten-hour drive back to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  So this was it.  I removed those thoughts of dread from my mind and returned my focus to the river to see those fish dimpling the water in regular cadence.  No matter what the weather, I had to suck it up and do what I came here to do. 
               The water flows from left to right with the spring about a quarter-mile upriver.  The river flows straight under highway 63 and then makes a severe gooseneck right below the Bouncer’s cabin.  Here, the water is deep and slow with large pools inundated by huge boulders that in many cases can only be seen during periods of low water.  In this run, the water is emerald green with tints of azure and the surface, due to the depth, is slick.  In order to get to these fish, I had to gain access through the Mammoth Spring RV Park, a place I had never before.  Mainly because the river is normally lined with corn-dipping, worm-chunking, PowerBait-probing low-holers that drive 40 ft. RVs with dogs and kids in tow, who promptly scatter along the bank throwing rocks into the water, which their dogs eagerly try to fetch.
               Of course I didn’t have that problem today.  It was raining buckets and cold as hell.  No one in their right mind would be fishing today. 
               Instead of traveling to a remote area, I decided to take on the Mammoth Spring RV Park and its mysterious rising fish.  I put on every layer of Simms and Patagonia I had, got in my truck and drove around and across the river to the Mammoth Spring RV Park.
               Let me go back, in case you don’t know about my love-hate relationship with the trout in the Spring River and qualify my previous statement, clarifying the rationale behind my reference to these rising fish as “mysterious.”  Most of the time I fish the Spring River out of necessity.  When the other three trout rivers (White, Norfork, and Little Red) are generating water through their USACE-operated hydroelectric dams, making it impossible for a boatless, wade-grunt such as myself to fish, I can't be picky.  I travel over 500 miles to trout fish and can't be choosy about when I can fish.  The fact that I am not a marginally-employed trout bum, but a college professor who works for a living, doesn't allow me the luxury of schedule flexibility.  I work so I can fish, not the other way around.  A blessing, of course, is that my good friend, the Bouncer, owns a cabin on the Spring, offering a good base of operations.  If the generation schedule shuts me out, I've always got the "good-ol' Spring" to fall back on.  Here, I don't have to worry about generation, and I always find willing trout to eat my humble offerings.
               The fish in the Spring River are stockers, all generously supplied by the AGFC from a hatchery adjacent to the Spring River located at an access point known as Dam 3.  The fish are stocked by truck at each access point already 10-12” long.  Most of the Rainbows that you catch are cookie-cutter 10-12” fish straight from the hatchery.  These fish, since birth, have been fed pellets by a machine, so their knowledge of how trout are supposed to act is limited.  But at some point, the DNA kicks in and these fish, the ones that aren’t caught immediately by the first piece of PowerBait they see, begin to target real trout food.  After all, they have to eat, and the longer they are in the river without being caught, the more “trouty” they become.  

Craig's Zelon Midge

Craig and Jackie Matthews

at Blue Ribbon Flies

West Yellowstone, MT

              These fish were acting extremely “trouty” on this yucky day and their quarry was invisible to me as I stepped out of my truck, grabbed my rod and walked to the edge of the water.  I assumed, and probably rightfully so at other times, that these fish were sipping midges.  So I came to the river pre-loaded with a #22 Zelon Midge, cream-colored.  A great imitation of the same bug I’d seen enumerable times on the river.  Craig Matthews would have been proud, considering I ordered them personally from him at Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, Montana.

               I entered the river and waded around, targeting rising fish, cast after cast with no takers.  It was then that a tiny, black bug landed on my nose.  I caught it, and through examination determined it to be a caddis; a microcaddis.  As I began to scan the surface of the water moving slowly past my waders, I saw more and more of these tiny bugs in the film.
              I quickly perused my midge box; the only box I’d brought with me, as I was certain the only bugs that could possibly be hatching today would be the ubiquitous midges, and had nothing that resembled what was coming off.  I hoofed it back to my truck and peered at the sun visor where two Cliff fly patches cluttered with flies were clipped.  Viola!  I found a Red Ass soft hackle, a Little Red River pattern, actually a variation of a partridge and green, but the body is tied with peacock hurl with a rib of red thread behind it, thus giving it the name “Red Ass.”



A View From My Sun Visor#16 Red Ass (A Little Red River Staple)

 

              I tied it on, hustled back to the river and fired a shot above a rising fish.  Bam!  I struck, and immediately broke my 6X tippet.  Straight rod and slack line in hand, cold rain pelting my face, I once again ambled to my truck and searched the Cliff patches, finding one last red ass, sparsely hackled and slightly chewed from another fishing trip.  I trimmed my leader, tied on the fly and headed back to the river.

              I caught rainbow trout until my already weathered Red Ass was nothing but a scrap of peacock hurl hanging feebly from a coiled remnant of black thread at the eye of the hook.  Every fish I caught was a visible riser.  Not quite what I expected on the Spring River.  But the more I fish here, the more I’m convinced that these fish are more focused on insect hatches than I had previously thought.  Even these “naive stockers” are genuine Oncorhynchus Mykiss, true Salmonids, a family that includes salmon, trout, char, whitefish, and grayling.  In other words, the DNA from pre-ice age ancestors is still in every individual cell of these fish.  That being said, rainbow trout are by nature, opportunists who will fall for the ruse of a red worm or a piece of fluorescent green PowerBait, just like they will a well-presented fly.

Lil' black caddis
 

              There is supposedly a good Trico hatch coming up in March.  If so, you might find my truck parked at the Spring River RV Park, and me, walking along the bank looking for rising fish.  In the meantime, I stumbled across this fantastic Zelon microcaddis pattern tied in...where else?  Montana?  No.  Arkansas.  Here's a picture of the bug and the website. http://www.northarkansasflyfisher.org/little_black_caddis.html Think I'll tie up a few and put them in my midge AND my caddis box.  That way, I won't be unprepared again when the "no-see um's" turn out to be caddis instead of midges.  Tight Lines and Best fishes to all of you.