Today was an incredible way to end our Arkansas White River trip! We went out with guide Donald Cranor today tossing spinning rods and beads. The difference between today’s method and yesterday’s is that today the bead was on the bottom the whole time, since we were not using indicators.

Boy did we get into some fish today! We started off at the same hot run we were fishing yesterday with Gabe, and we were banging brown trout left and right. By 9 a.m. I had already broken my personal best brown trout from the day before with a 21” fish! The morning weather was foggy and overcast, and we continued to clobber brown trout until lunch, throwing the 16-18 inch browns back like they were rainbows.

After lunch, things seemed to slow down a little. We motored up towards Bull Shoals State Park and fished a few runs. We didn’t seem to hook into any browns up there, only rainbows and a surprise cuttie I caught! Cranor decided to move back down river to where we had been having good luck during the morning.

Instantly we starting hooking into browns again. Every run seemed to produce one or two browns for us. Just after 3 p.m. I hooked into my new personal best brown trout, a 25.5” slab of butter! Man were we all stoked when we put that to the net! This was the last fish we put to the net this trip, can’t ask for a better way to end a trip if I do say so myself.

PB brown
My new personal best brown trout. 25.5 inches.

Cranor believes we caught 25 or so brown trout today, and many more rainbows. Today was truly unbelievable and the best day of fishing I have ever experienced.

Another brown
One of the many brown trout put to the net today.

My dad and I had a wonderful time on the White River catching great fish and making memories that will last a lifetime! I look forward to fishing the White River again in the near future.

Dad's brown
My dad with a nice brown.