The trout fishing’s fine despite a fast-flowing White River Coping with high water

By Buddy Gough (Contact)

BUFFALO CITY — The quiet sunrise setting of mist rising from the White River below the imposing sheer face of Stair Bluff provoked a mental retreat into the mists of time. While the riverfront across from the 500-foot bluff was deserted on a recent June morning, it would have been a bustling port of a real city a century ago. Paddle-wheelers would have been firing up their boilers and perhaps loading up with zinc ore, timber and farm goods.

The two ferries operating between the “old” city on the west bank and the “new” on the eastbank would have been taking on their first passengers of the day.

A few local and transient people out and about at sunrise undoubtedly would have been making their way to the general store for food and supplies.

That was also my destination as soon as I finished photographing the sunrise scene, fully expecting to find the old store open for business of a hospitable sort, starting with a hearty breakfast to be followed by a day of trout fishing with Charlie and Bill Goforth of Fayetteville, Bill’s son Clay and family friend Doug Kuntz, also of Fayetteville.

Outside the old stone store,I paused to take in its details, noticing how the builder had dressed up the facade with crystalline rock around the windowsof wavy glass. Inside the doubledoor entrance, my eyes weredrawn to the original embossedtin ceiling and shelves lined with antique utensils similar to those that may have once been among the store’s wares.

It certainly inspired a historical frame of mind.

Hearkening to a more recent past, however, the walls were hung with rugs of black bears, mounts of exotic fish and other trophies to show that the Goforths have hunted and fished far and wide in North and South Americas. There was also plenty of trout-fishing equipment to show they were frequent visitors to the White River.

When the affable and unassuming Goforth brothers decided their trips were frequent enough to justify having a fishing cabin on the river, they turned their backs on the many cabins and homes lining the shores of busy and popular places like Bull Shoals, Cotter and Norfork.

Instead, they came to Buffalo City at the literal end of the road, then acquired and restored the old general store as their base of operations for trips to various areas of the river.

That morning, the plan was to fish upstream from Buffalo City in the vicinity of Rim Shoals. Then, as now, the challenge was coping with high water. With the level of Bull Shoals Lake standing 38 feet above normal, water was being released through six to eight of the dam’s generators nearly around the clock.

FISHING CHALLENGE

Although an earlier spring trip to the river had the shown that the fishing guides were coping quite well with the high water and catching plenty of trout while drift-fishing with bottom rigs and natural bait, the Goforths preferred spincasting outfits with jigs and other lures to be fished toward the top of the water.

They are serious about it.

That became evident when I found myself in a boat with Clay, who turned out to be not only an angler of unusual skill, but also a young entrepreneur endeavoring to make a living in the sportfishing industry.

When we set up to start driftfishing with micro jigs, Goforth handed over a spincast rod with the thinnest blank and whippiest action of any I’d ever held.

While the Goforths clearly appreciated history in their choice of a cabin, they were obviously willing to take their fishing gear to a new level of technology. The result was the development of their G2 Custom Rods, which they began selling online in January.

As we began casting white jigs in high, fast water pushed by eight generators, Goforth explained how the rods came to be.

“The whole reason we got into making our own rods was because we fished jigs all the time and wanted a rod that would cast a jig better than anything we could find on the market,” Goforth said. “We looked at fly rods and worked with a rod manufacturer totransfer the principles of those rods to spincast rods.”

After months of experimentation, they came up with a “featherlight” series of rods rated lighter than most ultralight models.

“They are designed for 1- to 4-pound test lines and jigs weighing from 1/50 to 1/8 ounce,” Goforth said.

Since Clay and his father also fish for other species besides trout, they also developed a line of baitcasting rods suited for everything from panfish and black bass to peacock bass and king salmon.

The word “custom” in the name of the rods is taken seriously, since the rods can be ordered with thousands of variations and specifications.

“You can choose among 38 different blanks in eight different colors, 12 different reel seats and handles, nine different guides and nine different designs of guide wraps,” Clay said.

The end result is a one-of-akind rod with the angler’s name emblazoned on it at a price comparable to well-known brands like G.Loomis.

The featherlight rod I was using could cast a small jig like a charm, but unfortunately, the jigs were only marginally effective.

The main problem was water of a noticeably dingy color with quite a bit of moss and leaves being carried in the current, causing the slow-moving jigs to be fouled on nearly every cast.

LURE OF THE DAY

At midmorning, Goforth called for a switch to baitcasting tackle.

The type of lure tied to the line came as a surprise.

“It’s a Strike King Red Eye Shad and it’s normally what we use in water like this,” he noted.

The lipless, rattling crank bait had a chrome body, blue back and internal rattles. “In dingy water, always use a rattle,” Goforth said. For some reason, the lure retrieved at a slow and steady speed didn’t become as fouled as the jigs. Better yet, the lures worked effectively, allowing us to catch and release five rainbows in the first 15 minutes. “Notice how the trout are taking the front hook of the lure,” Goforth pointed out. “That means they are hungry and aggressive and are coming at the lure from the side instead of following it.” An hour’s fishing produced 12 rainbows up to 14 inches and a brown trout of 16 inches along with a half-dozen or more fish hooked and lost. Occasionally hooking fish backto-back, we were up to more than 20 trout by noon.

Although we saw fishermen in other boats casting various hard-body lures, we saw no one catch a single trout.

In the midst of the action,Goforth got around to talking about his goal of making a living at fishing.

He said he started fishing the White River when he was 9 years old, fished a lot more after he got a driver’s license and even did some guiding while attending the University of Arkansas.

After graduating with a degree in financial management and investment, he worked in banking for a few years, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Taking the gamble of his life, the 25-year-old entrepreneur set out to establish a fishing show to be televised on the Outdoor Channel.

“The name of the show is Fishing Frenzy and it’s all about exotic fishing like king salmon in Alaska, steelhead in Oregon and peacock bass in the Amazon, with the underlying theme of trying to break line-class records,” Goforth said.

Currently in the midst of filming a full series of shows, he recently returned from Alaska, where he caught a 52-pound king salmon and is soon headed for the Arctic Circle to fish for grayling and char.

When we met the elder Goforths and Kuntz for a shore lunch, they claimed to have caught about 30 trout.

Clay accused them of “cheating” because they had switched to bottom fishing with small plastic worms and Power Eggs.

Back on the water for a final hour of fishing, we found the trout still biting, but faced a deteriorating situation. The blue finishwas steadily peeling off the backs of our lures, causing them to become less and less effective.

We eventually ended up fishing Red Eye Shad in crawfish orange to scratch out a few final hook-ups.

Nevertheless, during our firstfour drifts over the same quartermile stretch of river with what was left of the blueback lures, we picked up nine rainbows to 14 inches and a brown trout of 14 inches.

More information on G2 Custom Rods is available at www.

G2rods.com.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 136, 137 on 06/29/2008