A while back we threw a question out on our socials: "Who's the best smallmouth guide in the Ozarks?"
By a landslide, one name kept showing up in the comments: Ryan Walker.
So we got him back on the mic, this time recording right from the water.
That conversation anchors this week's edition, but there's more going on too: a couple of Ozarks cultural events worth clearing your calendar for, and a Civil War story so strange we're still talking about it.
Let’s get to it!
HITHER & YONDER
World Champion Squirrel Cookoff
This week’s hither & yonder boils down to two events you can’t miss if you want to get a taste of Ozarks culture the next two weeks:
Squirrel Nuggets. The World Champion Squirrel Cookoff returns to Springdale this weekend, Sept. 12, complete with the World's Hottest Squirrel Eating Contest and a squirrel skinning contest.
Cane Hill Harvest Fest. The following weekend, the Cane Hill Harvest Festival returns to Historic Cane Hill, and this year's tied to the nation's 250th with a look at the area's Revolutionary War veterans and a Cherokee syllabary printing demonstration.
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WHY SMALLMOUTH ARE GETTING HARDER TO FOOL (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT)
A while back we threw out a question across our socials: "Who is the best smallmouth guide in the Ozarks?"
By a landslide, the most mentioned name in the comments was Ryan Walker with Ozarks Smallmouth FlyCo.
It's been about two years since we last interviewed him, so we got him back on the mic. But this time, we recorded from the water.
I'll give you two reasons you oughta listen to this one:
1. Macro level trends from an expert.
Ryan's in the water constantly, so he can spot trends that happen over years. And he gave us a theory that only someone that close to the water can.
Ten years guiding the same stretches will teach you to notice things nobody else catches. And what Ryan's noticing right now is a fish that eats different than it did even three years ago. Fewer of the old blow-up-and-smash takes he used to count on. A lot more nipping, more tasting, more fish coming up behind a streamer and giving it a hard look before turning off.
Ryan’s theory: fly fishing for smallmouth has gotten popular enough that the fish are catching on. More hooks in more mouths means a warier fish.
2. Practical advice for this weekend.
If you're lucky enough to get your feet in a river this weekend, put this advice to the test:
Start early, but don't panic once the sun gets high. Ryan's popper bite after 3pm has been just as good as his morning bite this year.
When you do throw topwater, quit working it so hard. Let it hit the water, let it sit, and let the fish come find it. Movement is what spooks them, not stillness.
Hunt for "braided water” or moving water with some depth and any kind of cover, rock, wood, a dip in the bottom. That's the 10% holding the fish.
In the heat of the day, look for a shady bank with a little current moving through it. Some of Ryan's biggest fish this year have come out of spots like that.
Approach from downstream and fish up to them. Smallmouth aren't leader-shy, but they hate seeing you move.
Good luck out there.
THE “RURNT” DAY OF MAJOR WOLF
This week on The Old Ozarks, Dr. Brooks Blevins unpacks the word “rurnt” and tells one of the wildest true stories to come out of the Civil War era from our corner of the world.
Major Enoch Wolf was a Confederate officer from the Arkansas Ozarks, captured during Price's Raid in the fall of 1864 and taken to St. Louis's Gratiot Street Prison.
He'd never seen much combat and never harmed a Union soldier. But when Union officers went looking for a Confederate major to execute in retaliation for a murder committed by somebody else entirely, Wolf happened to be the only one in the building.
He was given 72 hours to live. Seventy-two hours to write his wife and five kids back home. Seventy-two hours to get right with God.
Word got out, though. Wolf's fellow Masons may have worked behind the scenes. Two St. Louis society ladies went door to door with a mercy petition. A handful of prominent Unionists wired the White House directly.
Whatever combination of it worked, Abraham Lincoln himself sent a telegram less than a day before the execution, ordering it suspended.
But then it got stranger. That same night, a woman showed up at the prison claiming to be Wolf's wife, and guards let her in to say tearful goodbyes to a man who was already saved and clearly didn't recognize her. She wasn't his wife. She was a suspected Confederate spy.
Wolf survived. He walked most of the way home from Virginia after a prisoner exchange and lived out his days on the family farm in Arkansas.
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We’ll be back next week with more stories from the Ozarks.
Til then,
The Ozark Podcast