Fly Fishing the Norfork River. Ben Levin

      Norfork River (North-Central Arkansas)

       Location: North-central Arkansas, about a 3-hour drive from Little Rock, a 2¼-hour drive from Fayetteville, Arkansas, or Springfield, Missouri, and 4 hours from Memphis, Tennessee. All four cities have full-service airports.

      The 4.8-mile section of the North Fork of the White River is known as the Norfork River. It originates in southern Missouri and flows south through the Ozark Plateau into Arkansas, where Norfork Dam creates a year-round tailwater fishery for rainbow, brown, cutthroat, and brook trout. Beautiful wooded Ozark foothills and limestone bluffs line the banks of this short jewel of a tailwater down to its confluence with the White River.

      Like the White, the Norfork was a warmwater fishery until the 1944 completion of Norfork Dam changed the ecosystem in favor of trout. Rainbows were subsequently stocked and grew phenomenally fast in such a nutrient-rich environment. Norfork National Fish Hatchery was opened just below the dam in 1957 to stock the river, along with other White River system tailwaters. Trout between 5 and 10 pounds soon became common. In 1988, the Norfork gained worldwide fame when a 38-pound, 9-ounce world-record brown was caught one summer evening.

      Most trout in the Norfork average 10 to 14 inches. Larger fish, especially browns up to and well over 20 inches, are caught regularly. Abundant scuds, sow bugs, midges, sculpin, and crayfish grow trout to trophy proportions quickly. Every year somebody catches a true hog around the 10-pound or 30-inch mark, usually a brown. The Norfork is one of the few places east of the Rockies where cutthroat are stocked and caught regularly. The Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat planted in the Norfork average 10 to 14 inches, but can easily grow to over 20.