The river less traveled
Posted on Thursday, July 3, 2008
WOOLUM — Sweet tranquility stretched before the canoe as far as the eye could see around a distant bend.
In a long pool curving between the rampart of a 200-foot bluff on one side and shaded gravel bars on the other, the still surface of the green water revealed nothing except the picture-perfect reflection of the bluff and trees. The absence of paddlers ahead and campers and swimmers crowding the gravel bars was a rare blessing when good water flows coincide with summer days on any area river, much less the ever-so-popular Buffalo National River. Yet the tranquil setting was not exceptional along the section of river floated last Thursday and Friday with Terry Fredrick of Fayetteville.
We could have easily noted that the miles of river behind the canoe had been as equally absent of human intrusion as the scene before us. And within a few hours, we would be to able say the same about the miles ahead.
The hope of such solitude was the primary reason for choosing an overnight float on a seemingly forgotten part of the Buffalo between Carver and Woolum. Unlike frequent mentions made of the popular stretches from Ponca to Pruitt, Woolum to Gilbert and Buffalo Point to Buffalo City, little is heard of the Carver-to-Woolum section.
Perhaps a major reason is the absence of outfitters serving the 15. 4-mile stretch, forcing paddlers to deal with the inconvenience of hauling their own canoes and handling their own shuttles. If escaping the crowds was not enough for us to put up with the inconvenience, we had the extra motivation of possibly having a naive population of under-fished smallmouth bass almost entirely to ourselves.
GETTING ON THE RIVER Thanks to rainfall that had raised the river to an ideal float-fishing level of nearly 5. 5 feet on the river gauge at St. Joe, we left at sunrise Thursday, bound first to drop off a shuttle vehicle at the Woolum takeout and then backtracking to the Carver put-in. Although much of the stretch would be completely unfamiliar, we were accompanied by an excellent “guide” in the form of the Buffalo River Handbook by Ken Smith. Besides detailing every significant bluff, pool, riffle and shoal along the river, the guidebook broke the stretch into two sections: Carver to Mount Hersey, 6. 8 miles, and Mount Hersey to Woolum, 8. 6 miles.
We originally thought to do only the longer of the two sections but decided the combined length of the two would be more appropriate for a two-day trip devoted to serious fishing. It was a decision later regretted for not allowing enough time to do justice to the fishing action.
Nevertheless, as we traveled south from Harrison on U. S. 65, the accesses to the river were easy to find, with signs along the highway pointing the way to Carver on Arkansas 123 near Western Grove and to Woolum on Arkansas 374 near St. Joe.
After a lengthy shuttle that already had us wondering if we should have put in at Mount Hersey, we were on the water at Carver at midmorning, shoving off under calm, sunny conditions from a gravel bar near the Arkansas 123 bridge over the river.
Entering a wide, shallow pool, we judged the water flow to be nearly perfect, with just enough color to make the fishing better.
Passing through a shallow series of short pools and shoals, we also began to see the results of near-record rises on the river last spring, such as a wooden pallet caught high in a sycamore tree and downed trees along the banks. The present river level and the width of the channel throughout the float, however, would make the downed trees only minor obstacles.
On a river where the presence of towering bluffs characterizes the scenic beauty, notable ones began to appear within the first mile, including a 160-footer followed quickly by a 180-footer to set the stage for bigger bluffs appearing as major landmarks along the way.
One of the most noteworthy was Falls Bluff, appearing about four miles into the float. With patches of tan and salmon colors enlivening its gray rock, the rough, uneven face of the bluff was described in the guidebook as having a “setback and overhangs and alcoves with calcite draperies.” Its most striking feature was a waterfall emerging from a cave 60 feet up the bluff and flowing down through draperies of ferns.
The major bluffs tended to be associated with the larger, deeper pools that led into riffles and shoals, many featuring bedrock bottom low ledges with small standing waves and swift current to speed us along between the pools.
At first, the bluffs and shoals didn’t get much of our attention because of a major distraction — the fish were biting.
Casting a small crawfish-colored crank bait, Fredrick began regularly catching small smallmouths and brilliantly colored pumpkinseed and green sunfish. Casting a tube bait in the deeper water and twitching a Fluke in the current, I picked up fewer but larger smallmouths, including many scrappy 12-inchers. The action gradually tapered off as the fish went into a midday lull and stopped biting altogether well before we reached Falls Bluff. That turned out to be OK, because the two miles between the bluff and Mount Hersey featured primarily shallow stretches and long shoals with few deep holes to hold fish. We just drifted along, enjoying the solitude and easy floating.
BEST OF THE FLOAT Passing the Mount Hersey access in late afternoon, we entered what was to be best of the float with the biggest bluffs and longest pools and a wealth of fishing-holding waters.
Just past the access, we came to the aptly named Copper Bluff. Rising 200 feet above the river, its upper face is stained red and orange with iron oxide.
Beyond the bluff was Patton Shoal, described in the guidebook as a long, fast series of rapids twisting over ledges and through standing waves for more than 100 yards, followed by 200 more yards of fast water.
Coming up next were two pools described as the longest on the middle part on the Buffalo, with lengths of a halfmile to nearly a mile. This was where the fish started biting again to provide good action.
We caught lots sunfish and smallmouth measuring 10-12 inches, and a few larger ones of 13-15 inches. Many had swollen bellies, indicating they were bearing eggs and on the verge of spawning.
Two hours of good fishing took us down to the hole at John Reddell Bluff, located about 3. 5 miles below Mount Hersey. The great curving wall of the bluff, streaked with cream, tan and orange, formed a beautiful backdrop for a campsite set up on a gravel bar on the opposite side of the river.
We awoke the next morning to the sound of light rain pattering on the tent roof. It continued for more than an hour, delaying the breaking of camp much later than we had planned. It was a delay we would regret.
We started out fishing the bluff hole and immediately found the fish biting in the current at the upper end of the hole and again at the lower end. The hour spent there also would be regretted.
Just downstream, we entered a narrow, boulder-lined pool about a quarter-mile long with current flowing over chunkrock bottom the entire distance. It was loaded with smallmouths, and the current made it ideal for using the Fluke.
After catching a half-dozen smallmouths of 12-14 inches and losing a few more, we decided the current was the place to be.
Although we would go through more of the long shoals with fast water, we would also encounter more pools with current at either end, as well as more of the short, narrow pools of chunk-rock runs. Wherever we found slow current, we found fish and usually in bunches. One spot of deep, swirling water next to boulders, for example, produced hookups with four smallmouths in the 14-inch range along with a few smaller ones.
1 For about 3 / 2 miles of river, we had a grand time catching fish and enjoying the setting and solitude as we approached the Narrows, or the Nars, where our interest shifted to photography. Featuring a knife-edge spine of rock standing like a narrow wall between the river and Richland Creek Valley, the Nars is one of the river’s major landmarks, visited and climbed by generations of hikers.
Seeing it from the river put it in an entirely new perspective.
Just downstream was another impressive feature consisting of a sheer, bluff wall rising straight up from the water with cavelike openings at the bottom. The late Dr. Neil Compton, founder of the Ozark Society, named it Skull Bluff, but it’s also known to locals as the Bat House for its submerged cave openings at the bottom.
There was plenty of deep, swirling water between the Nars and Skull Bluff, but we didn’t get to fish it because a thunderstorm that had been building since midmorning announced its imminent arrival with thunder and lightning to erase the river’s atmosphere of tranquility. Getting through the nearly two miles of river between Skull Bluff and Woolum became an exercise of ceaseless paddling to beat the storm. We just made it, but we also passed through some of the finest fishing terrain of the entire float, a lot of it consisting of fish-holding current in short pools with submerged boulders and some narrow stretches with chunk-rock bottom. We could have spent two to three hours fishing the final stretch instead of getting to Woolum at noon and much too soon.
FLOAT IN HINDSIGHT Driving back to retrieve Fredrick’s pickup at the Carver put-in, we decided we would do the overnight float trip differently next time, with both of us agreeing there would definitely be a next time.
We would skip the Carver-to-Mount Hersey section altogether in favor of the Mount Hersey-to-Woolum section.
Although the section is only 8. 6 miles, it offers great scenery and arguably the finest fishing water to be found along the middle Buffalo. There are more than enough choice areas to occupy an overnight trip of going slowly and fishing seriously.
Ideally, we would aim to arrive at the Mount Hersey access at midafternoon to be on the water for the good bite from then to sundown.
We would float and fish down to John Reddell Bluff and continue past the bluff to camp on the gravel bar beside the chunk-rock run just downstream. It would be a good place to get started for nearly a full day of float fishing the remaining 9 miles.
We would also try to time the trip with a river level of 5. 0-5. 5 feet on the St. Joe gauge.
Oh, yeah, thunderstorms would not be in the forecast. Paddlers interested in more detailed information on the Carver-Woolum stretch of the Buffalo River can check the Buffalo River Handbook by Ken Smith or the Canoeing and Kayaking Guide to the Ozarks by Tom Kennon.
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