Record water releases from Bull Shoals Dam

Lots of homes and other properties being flooded downriver from Bull Shoals dam as Beaver, Table Rock, Norfork, and Bull Shoals lakes reach flood stage - water must be released to mitigate the potential damage. For those of you familiar with the Cotter Access and Roundhouse Shoals, this is an even more jaw-dropping scene. Where we are staying and where we will eventually build are both far removed from flooding danger. We just have to find a hidy-hole occasionally due to tornado warnings this spring, as we know a lot of you have had to do. Stay safe!


Cotter Trout Dock under seige - swimming hole to the left is no longer a hole




Water flowing over the berms and through the parking lot


Top of island: Roundhouse Shoals


Bottom of island: Roundhouse Shoals

Charlcies flower pics

Clipping Fins

Along with others, we volunteered to help Arkansas Game & Fish trout biologist clip adipose fins on Cutthroat trout before they are released. This will help identify this group in the future to determine growth rates, survival rates, movement, etc. This class averaged 11" in length, which is larger than the normal stocking size - it is hoped by releasing larger fish their survival rate will be improved. I don't know how many we clipped (in the hundreds), but a total of 12,000 will be marked in a two-day period.

Toy Story

Finally had a chance to take our Polaris Ranger to the land for our initial ride in it. Although we've had it for awhile, we couldn't seem to find the right time to take it for a spin. I imagine when the house starts, we will have it out there often. We enjoyed exploring the hills and valleys.

Cicada

This is the coming out year for the 13-year periodical cicadas throughout the south (called the Great Southern Brood). These guys have been living underground as nymphs for 13 years, and are coming out now to shed their shells, mate, and then die. As a survival mechanism, they emerge by the millions to satisfy the appetites of their many predators. The idea is that the predators will gorge on the plentiful prey until they can't eat anymore - leaving the surviving cicadas to lay their eggs to produce the next generation - coming to you in 2024. To attract mates, they congegrate in groups and when there is a forest full of them, produce sounds like a distant jet engine. We were out at our property and heard this relatively loud noise that we initially thought was bulldozer work going on in the area, until we started seeing many of these little guys (about a third of the size of the black/green larger ones we are all familiar with) buzzing about. They're colorful little buggers.

Along the walking paths

With both tail waters pumping out flows of water that are prohibitive for wade-fishing, we have openings in our recreation schedule. Spurred on by the cool weather and the full blooming of honeysuckle along the walking paths, we have extended our walks to cover more ground and at a faster pace. Conventional wisdom says that this is good for our physical and mental health - we're hoping this is the case. We always take our camera and when the opportunity arises, we brake for interesting plants, bugs, animals, etc. Unfortunately, we don't have the right stuff to capture suitable images of all the cool birds along the way.

Mother's Day

Instead of getting cut flowers for Mother's Day, Charlcie wanted to go on a hike along the river to capture images of wildflowers and also to get some exercise on a gorgeous day! Charlcie couldn't resist harvesting a few roses from our yard after our hike. Of course, a call from Ben and text from Myka made the day complete for Charlcie.

Another Mother at our house



Ozark Columbine

Cotter Trout Festival

Sherman Mtn. Boys: these 16-yr. olds could really pick and sing!

Big Spring swimming hole



Living in a small community surrounded by other small communities, there is no shortage of activities to entertain, educate, and amuse. Seems like there is always a fish fry, pancake breakfast, music night, festival, or other event to lure you into sampling a taste of the local culture. This week-end we participated in the annual Cotter Trout Festival, a celebration to recognize the importance of trout fishing in this area - including, of course, the tremendous economic impact of tourism and retiree settlements based on this sport :). Arts and crafts, a parade, a flyover, bluegrass music, and the old swimming hole for the kids were all part of the festivities - oh, and Food! Funnel cakes, fried pies, BBQ!

USA! USA! USA!

We were lying in bed reading Sunday evening when Ben texted that our military had killed Osama bin Laden. I just happened to be reading the chapter about 9/11 in George W. Bush's book "Decision Points" when Ben alerted us - a little chill ran up my spine and a smile spread across my face. We finally got the murdering coward! A proud day for America!

More Little Rock stuff

In order to keep Ben occupied while Myka continued her studies, we had a busy day on Saturday. We started by taking a hike over and back on the Big Dam Bridge, which is billed as the longest dedicated pedestrian-biking bridge in the world. It is built over a lock and dam on the Arkansas river and is part of a 15-mile trail system in Little Rock and North Little Rock. The bridge itself is a little over 3/4 mile one way. A very entertaining location to get your excercise.
We followed that by going to see the movie "Atlas Shrugged Part I". Not a quality movie as far as the production, but very timely subject matter.
We were happy that Myka did get to join us for dinner at Loca Luna - very good meal. I could make a meal there by eating several white chocolate creme brules'!

Sweet Baby James

A couple of months back, Ben called to alert us to an upcoming James Taylor concert. Being fans since the 60s, we of course wanted to try to get tickets. We were somewhat surprised that Ben would also be interested. The result was a great evening for the three of us (Myka had to stay home and study for finals). It was really cool that we didn't even seem to embarrass Ben one time during the two hours of fantastic music - not even when Charlcie and I were moving in our seats, lip-syncing, and participating in the many standing ovations. Ben has progressed quite nicely in tolerating his parents. James Taylor was better than ever!
The photos were taken with a phone so are not top quality.

Spring is Here!

Given all the destructive storms of the past few weeks throughout the south, it would be silly to whine too much about the minor problems we have personally experienced. However there were some anxious moments when all the storms were moving through.
At our walk-in where we normally fish, very clear water that first accumulates in a wide, shallow pool, before it carries through two long shoals, the rains have created a muddy, raging river that obscures all of the large boulders and completely submerges the two islands we normally have.
Record rainfalls and rapidly rising lake levels have created situations of open floodgates at the dams on the White River system. This has created equal opportunity distribution of misery for many homeowners that are not normally in areas considered flood-prone. The 100-year floods seem to be coming in 3-year increments now. The Norfork Dam currently has 12 floodgates open, resulting in the flow of the equivalent of 5 generators running (Norfork only has two generators), creating a mess downstream.
At least now the rains have stopped, allowing for some receding of waters, so we got out to observe.

Our fishing hole is now a deep, wide, muddy mess



Obviously the turtles are happy to see the sunshine - a little crowded on this log

Our yard is full of surprises that keep popping up

This Cutthroat was one of many lunkers in Dry Run Creek upstream from the confluence with the Norfork. Not much impact of the flooding on this stream.

Scotts Visit

It was a pleasure to have our good friends Patricia and Ed Scott over for a visit for a couple of days. It was the first opportunity to get together with the Scott’s since they were such great hosts for us at their place in Jackson Hole, Wyoming when we were on our western trip last summer.
The weather and dam generation patterns allowed for only one day of fishing. Although it wasn’t a memorable day based on the numbers of fish caught, it sure was a great day on the river with good fishing buddies. We also had a chance to get in a little hike. Ed showed his mastery of the grill which produced some perfect filets, served with fresh mushrooms, asparagus, and twice baked potatoes that the ladies had prepared. This was after the previous night’s feast of KT’s BBQ ribs, etc. A common theme when with good friends – lots of great food and conversation!

Surprise catch in the trout stream - leave it to Charlcie!