A Little Fishing, A Little Hiking

Round Hole on the Little Red River

The first part of a Labor Day weekend adventuring in Arkansas

Labor Day weekend seemed as good as any time to break away for a little fishing expedition; as well, kayaking, hiking, and general getting lost in the woods of North Central Arkansas. While there was not quite as much of the latter, plenty of the former was well at hand.

My good friend Harley and I bolted out of town in the middle of Thursday afternoon, in the hopes of beating most of the lake traffic that could potentially haunt us in multiple locations. The two most perilous sections being from Kansas City to Truman Lake, and from there to the Table Rock / Bull Shoals area. Beyond that, the only hazard was darkness and suicidal deer. We encountered very little lake traffic though, and the deer population must have been in good spirits. They only watched from the side of the road the few times we identified their existence.

We arrived at our destination on schedule, just before midnight, and kicked back with a cold beer and conversation with our hosts, the good Doctor and his wife. They confirmed much of what I had seen on the US Geological Survey Stream Gauge web site. Water levels had been fairly consistent over the last month, and the Corps had only been running water in the late afternoon and evening hours. Trout fishing would likely be at its finest, as well as any attempts to paddle downstream. With nothing else but blue skies and sunshine, the weekend outlook was purely positive. All we needed was a little sleep to put the seven hour road trip behind us. Google said it was six. They lied.

Bakers Ford on the Little Red River

A beautiful morning greeted us Friday, and a quick glance out the window confirmed a pristine ankle-deep river at our spot at Baker’s Ford. This shallow water area has the perfect bottom structure to attract and hold big trout; on top of that, nobody else was out and about. In short order, we were down on the dock, having had nothing more than a cup of coffee and a pastry. There were fish to be had! Harley dragged the first two catches out, but had no further luck the remainder of the day; the next six were mine, though I could only keep five, due to limits. None of them were very large, but perfect pan size. As the afternoon lingered on, and having spent a good 5 hours at it, the fish seemed less and less interested in our game, so we retired in the middle of the afternoon.

Walking Bridge along Collins Creek Trout Stream Trail

After cleaning the fish up and then ourselves, I decided to show Harley at a few of my usual haunts around town. We first dropped in on the lookout at the dam, then headed down to Collins Creek to dip our feet in the water and go for a short hike along the trail there. From there, we headed over to another favorite of mine, Bridal Veil / Cornelius Falls. These two are within shouting distance of each other, and a small deer trail leads from the rim of one, directly to the other. I usually go for a walk down to the base, but a day in the sun on the river had taken a little bit of a toll on us both, and we were not really prepared for all that climbing around. Additionally, the main falls were dry as a bone, and following the path to the other falls, we found the same sad story. It was really no matter though. Having been to these spots so many times in the past, I had plenty of photos already. It would have been nice to show off falls actually on duty though.

Having had enough fun for one day, we stopped back by the house and scooped up the the Doctor, and headed out for a little dinner at Mack’s Fish House. The special of the day was Crab boil and two for one Rib Eye, which was very tasty. As an added bonus, a band that would be performing the next night at Spring Park was doing a little demo gig there. We were considering checking out the show, and their little performance at Mack’s convinced us to drop in on their show Saturday night too.