Little Red Trout Stop

Remnants from overnight rains and an approaching bigger system caused me to question my idea of a travel detour to the Little Red River on the way home from Fort Smith last week. However, a window of only sprinkles appeared that it would last through the morning, and the swing wasn't that far off my travel path.

Upon arriving, I found completely low water. That makes for easy wading it but can make the fishing tougher, especially with artificial lures. A bit more flow definitely makes tailwater trout more aggressive and causes them to hold in predictable positions. The low flows eliminated ideas I'd had about throwing large minnow bait for the Little Red's famous big browns, but I remained hopeful that stocker rainbows (and maybe a brown or two) would show interest in smaller hard-bait offerings.

Story shortened, they did. It took a bit of looking to find the best spot, and I experimented a bit with lures and colors before finding what they wanted most on that morning, but once I figured it out, the action was good. I lost count, but I'd guess I ended up catching between 15 and 20 trout in a few hours before beginning my travel toward home. All except one were rainbows. Most were fresh stocker size. A few were a bit longer and stouter and looked like they'd been in the river longer. I also caught one brown trout and had one slightly bigger brown (maybe 16 inches) roll on top and throw the hook.

My best lure, by far, was a Rebel TD47 Tracdown Ghost Minnow in a Brown Trout color pattern, worked steadily with just an occasional twitch to trigger strikes. That's not surprising. The Ghost Minnow has a slender profile creates a subtlety that's good for fussy fish and it can be swam close to the bottom. The Brown Trout color and tends to produce well on dark days.

It was a fun few hours in the stream, and the 2018 fish list is officially underway, with rainbow trout and brown trout being the first two listings. I'd actually done a bit fishing in bass waters the day before I visited the Little Red, but I didn't catch anything that day. My next stop is also to a trout stream, so maybe I can add brook trout!