Written by: Benjamin Garner
It was July 2023, and I was trying to film one last scene on the Little Red River in Arkansas for my feature documentary. Kati and Jamie Rouse, who happen to be Orvis-endorsed guides, had agreed to take me out and help me try to catch a brown trout in deep summer, the most difficult time to catch a brown. Jamie and I met around 5:30 a.m. at Ramsey Landing, east of Pangburn. The sun was just beginning to think about coming up. We loaded the boat and began casting streamers. It was foggy, and the water was still relatively high from the previous day’s generation. The trout section of the Little Red is a tailwater, and water is generated from below Greer’s Ferry Lake in the Ozark Mountains. In the heat of summer, the brown trout tend to lie low and are mostly active at night, early morning, and late evening. During the heat of the day, it’s very difficult to catch them or even get them to chase a fly.
The Little Red River was put on the fly-fishing map in 1992 when Rip Collins caught a 40 lb. 4-ounce brown trout that ended up being a world record, one which stood for many years. Since then, people have flocked to the Little Red in hopes of catching the next world record. According to some interviews I did for the documentary, this led to some over-harvesting of browns, and overfishing that damaged the resource. Add to that a 2012 drought that reportedly killed many large browns, and the river has had its share of difficulties. It’s just now starting to climb back up.
Jamie and I had been fishing for about an hour, and we hadn’t caught any browns. I had missed one probably due to setting the hook too fast, and Jamie gave me some tips to increase my “batting average,” as he put it, and get more fish in the net. He was also teaching me to do some tricky casts under trees, and I was still hopeful we might pick up a fish or two. I cast downstream and let the streamer swing: strip, strip, pause. Then a fish hit, and I had him on the line. I was so excited. Our trip was already a success. Not huge brown, but a beautiful and wild fish. It was the only trout we caught that day, but it was a great feeling. There we were, floating down a river, in search of a wild fish that had lived its whole life on the river and had never seen a hatchery. It was a wonderful experience.
Growing Up on the River
I grew up 30 minutes from the Little Red, and learned how to fly-fish on the river. To me, it was just a normal part of life to be able to drive down the road to a great trout river. When I moved away and fished other rivers in the U.S. over the years, I came to realize what a great fishery I had enjoyed growing up and how unique its brown-trout population actually is. The browns on the Little Red are so prolific that no stocking is required, and there has been a thriving population of browns since the first eggs were planted in the 1970s. Famous fly-fisherman Dave Whitlock helped with this process. While trout aren’t native to Arkansas, they are “wild” in that they naturally reproduce and are self-sustaining. Scientists don’t know why browns are so well adapted to the Little Red and reproduce well here, even better than in other famous Arkansas Rivers like the White and the Norfolk.
In 2021 I moved back to Arkansas after stints in Kansas and Georgia, and I started planning to film a documentary on the Little Red River. My initial conversations with Lowell Myers, then president of the Little Red River Foundation (LRRF), indicated that this was a good time to do the project and that the LRRF would help me get participants for the film. Over the next two years, I worked hard on the project and interviewed the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, a fisheries biologist doing studies on the Little Red, and travelers from out of state and from nearby. I also utilized my own story of coming home to this river.
In April 2024, the film aired on PBS stations across the U.S. I also hosted public screenings across Arkansas, in Little Rock, Bentonville, Conway, and Searcy. The story highlights the immense potential of the Little Red, but also the challenges it faces, such as overuse, inconsistent management, summer heat, and conflicting jurisdictions. Like most issues, there is no silver bullet. The answer appears to be that the people who care the most about the river need to get involved and become advocates for its protection.
For those who love fly-fishing, the Little Red is just one story that could be told. Many of the themes that are captured in this film will resonate with audiences and make them think about their home lake or river. I believe that our love for wild areas such as lakes, rivers, and mountains are places where we can transcend our differences and focus on the common goals of having natural places to go enjoy, for current and future generations.