Eight units at Bull Shoals, one number to divide by
Bull Shoals Dam has eight generators, the original four and four bigger ones added through 1963, and the Southwestern Power Administration rates them together at 391 megawatts and about 26,400 cfs at full power. Cotter Trout Dock's rule of thumb is roughly 3,300 cfs per unit at capacity, and the Ember Shoals shop in Cotter puts the arithmetic plainly: divide the release in cfs by 3,300, or the megawatt figure by 48.88, and you have the number of generators running. Since the Minimum Flow Initiative of 2009 the dam never drops much below about 700 cfs; the Corps table for September 22 and 23, 2026 showed overnight turbine releases of 700 to 793 cfs and an afternoon peak of 11,328.
The day-ahead plan is SWPA's projected loading schedule, where the Bull Shoals column is labelled BSD and the values are megawatts by hour ending. Ember Shoals says it is posted Monday through Thursday around 5 p.m. for the next day, and Friday evening for Saturday through Monday. The recorded lines are 870-431-5311 for what the Corps is releasing now and 866-494-1993 for SWPA's projection, both printed on the AGFC tailwater map. One caution from the same shop: a recording that says no generators are running does not rule out water coming through the flood gates or sluice pipes.
What the Norfork gauge is actually measuring
USGS 07057370 sits below the mouth of the North Fork, about 44 river miles from Bull Shoals, so it reads the two dams together plus whatever the Buffalo is carrying from Buffalo City. That makes it the right number for the lower half of the trout water and a lagging one for Cotter. Cotter Trout Dock figures a release takes five to six hours to reach Cotter, 18 miles down; Ember Shoals gives four to five hours for a big release and says the drop takes about the river mile divided by two, so roughly nine hours at Cotter after the units shut off.
Between September 10 and 24, 2026 the gauge never fell below 1,550 cfs, with daily lows between 1,550 and 2,100 and afternoon or overnight highs from 3,230 on the quietest day to 14,300 on the heaviest. The 1,500 to 4,000 cfs band on this page is built from that record, not from a shop chart: the bottom is both dams on minimum flow, the top is about one Bull Shoals unit added. Nobody publishes a wading number for this gauge. Above it the river belongs to boats, although Dally's notes that a surprising amount of water stays fishable on foot at higher flows. For context, USGS monthly means since 2003 run from about 5,900 cfs in November to 13,700 in April.
Two rainbows above Norfork Access, one over 14 below it
The Bull Shoals Tailwater runs from 100 yards below the dam to the Highway 58 bridge at Guion, and a trout permit is required to fish it. After the 2025 losses at Norfork National Fish Hatchery, which normally supplies more than half the river's rainbows, the 2026-27 guidebook carries these rules until further notice. From the dam to the Norfork Access boat ramp you may keep two rainbow trout and every trout over 14 inches goes back. From Norfork Access to Guion you may keep two trout, only one of them over 14 inches, and the minimums of 24 inches for brown, cutthroat and tiger trout and 14 for brook trout still stand.
The catch-and-release areas carry their own rules: artificial lures or flies only, barbless hooks, no chumming, no catching bait. The upper one runs from 100 yards below the dam to the upstream boundary of Bull Shoals-White River State Park and is catch-and-release February 1 through October 31; from November 1 to January 31 it is closed to fishing and extends to the wing dike at the park trout dock. From that wing dike to the park's downstream boundary, browns must be released November 1 through January 31 and there is no night fishing. Rim Shoals, near Cotter, runs from the sign above the mouth of Jenkins Creek to the first power line downstream. Big Spring at Cotter is open only to youths under 16 with an adult and to disabled adult anglers, sunrise to sunset, single barbless artificials. Smallmouth on the White now fall under the Blue Ribbon rule: one fish, over 15 inches.
Ramps by the mile, Jim Griffin to Red's Landing
The AGFC tailwater map numbers the accesses by distance from the dam. Jim Griffin, Forrest and Nina Wood and the state park are at the top; White Hole is at mile 7, Wildcat Shoals 12, Cotter 18, Rim Shoals and the Rim Shoals walk-in 24.5, Ranchette 28.5, Buffalo City 32 at the Buffalo's mouth, Cartney 36, Norfork Access 44 and Red's Landing 49. Rising River Guides launches drift boats at Jim Griffin because it is closest to the dam, finds wadeable water at Forrest and Nina Wood with a few units on, and walks the trail from the Rim Shoals walk-in about a mile down to White Shoals. From Shipp's Ferry the walk is down the railroad tracks to the holes below.
Bull Shoals-White River State Park has 109 campsites, and its marina rents a 20-foot john boat with a 15-horse motor for $135 a day; the dock closes in December and January. Cotter Trout Dock has been renting boats since 1954, Steve Dally Outfitters in Cotter (870-435-6166) posts reports and a water page, and Two Rivers Fly Shop sits where the North Fork comes in.
Sowbugs every month, sulphurs in June, shad when the lake turns cold
Dally's describes the White first as nymphing water: midges all year, scuds and sowbugs everywhere, then caddis from March into May, sulphurs in June and July and terrestrials after that. Big Y Fly Co's chart puts the sulphurs from mid-May to early July and blue-winged olives in late April and again from late August into October. Flys and Guides says the sulphurs start trickling off around noon and peak from 3 to 6 p.m., that high water prolongs the hatch, and that a size 16 is the one to carry. Rising River finds the spring caddis best in the upper 16 miles or so, from Rim Shoals to the dam.
The shad kill is the White's winter event. Whiteriver.net describes threadfin shad being pulled through the Bull Shoals turbines sometime after New Year, usually by mid-February, lasting anywhere from a week to more than a month, and trout of 8 to 10 pounds coming to white Woolly Buggers, streamers and white marabou jigs on a 5- or 6-weight. The same source counted 188 brown trout per mile over five pounds in its 1993-94 survey, which is why people stand in the cold for it.