Fish 'n Fiddle and Norfork Lake

The Fish 'n Fiddle

We left Eureka Springs the next morning, but vowed that we would certainly return, and headed out for our next stop- The Fish and Fiddle Resort on Norfork Lake at Mountain Home, Arkansas. We had reserved a two bedroom cabin here for a week. We checked in, bought our Arkansas fishing licenses, and got settled into our new digs. We hiked down a considerable grade to get a glimpse of Norfork Lake. The lake is actually a reservoir formed by damming the north branch of the White River. It is huge, covering 34,000 acres, and incredibly deep. The water is amazingly clear thanks to the invasive zebra mussels, and from initial report, the fishing was in full swing, unlike Minnesota.

Ozark vistas

We labored back up the grade to our cabin and broke out the grill for some bratwurst which we had with some canned (Captain Larry’s is a whole lot better) German potato salad.

The next morning we did an abbreviated daily walk (only an hour) and then headed over to Tracy Ferry Marina on Lake Norfork, about 2 miles away, to pick up our pontoon rental.

Another Ozark shot

Jane drove back to the cabin while Captain Larry took the pontoon to our Fish ‘n Fiddle slip. We had some lunch and decided to take the boat out for an afternoon of fishing. We started fishing for striped and hybrid bass along with walleye, but with little success. Ely, MN déjà vu!

Fishing from our pontoon

After a while of fruitless results, we switched to fishing the weed lines close to the shoreline. This produced fish, but they were bream, and small largemouth and smallmouth bass. But we were catching fish! We headed in with about a half dozen of the larger species, cleaned them, and went to the cabin and grilled some awesome pork chops for dinner.

We walked for an hour the next day and got a feel for the surrounding terrain- extremely steep down to the lake, and quite hilly everywhere else.

Deer everywhere

In short, everything seemed to be uphill. After our walk, we went fishing until lunch time, came in for lunch, and fished some more in the afternoon. We stopped early so we could drive into Mountain Home to purchase a swimming suit for Captain Larry, along with some other items. We made it back to the resort in time to enjoy a little time in the resort’s pool, before whipping up a really delicious chicken pasta for dinner.

Where's the deer rifle?

Our remaining days at the resort closely followed this pattern- start the day with a walk, fish in the morning, have lunch, fish in the afternoon, come in early and relax before having dinner. One of the things we really enjoyed about this resort was the large number of deer that we viewed from our cabin and along our walking routes. They were everywhere.

We had great weather, until the last day, for the week, and got a lot of fishing in. On our last day we waited for a break in the rain for Captain Larry to return the pontoon.

I see them horns!

Back at the cabin, we battered and fried all of the fish we caught that week and had a delicious fish dinner. The next morning we checked out and drove through the Ozarks on our way back to Louisiana, arriving in the early evening. While it wasn’t the most productive fishing trip, we did have a great time and were able to finish something we had talked about doing for quite a while.