The Ozark artist is making a everlasting tribute to the person who helped make Arkansas’s White River a world-class fishery. Picture courtesy of Duane Hada’s Rivertown Gallery
Famend Ozark artist Duane Hada is portray a memorial tribute to Dave Whitlock, the Oklahoma-born fly-fishing legend who spent greater than 4 a long time on the White River and whose improvements—from the ever present Dave’s Hopper to the Whitlock-Vibert Field egg incubator system—helped set up north-central Arkansas as a vacation spot that anglers worldwide as world-class.
A public ribbon-cutting celebration is scheduled for March 26, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. at Wishes & Fishes Fly Shop (Jimmy T’s), 627 Central Blvd., Bull Shoals—fittingly, simply two days into that 12 months’s Sowbug Roundup, the nation’s premier fly-tying exposition that Whitlock attended faithfully till his ultimate years.
The Artist: Duane Hada
Few artists could possibly be higher suited to this fee than Hada, an Ozark native whose work sits on the intersection of wildlife artwork, Ozark landscapes, and fly-fishing tradition.
Born in Boone County, Arkansas, Hada has spent a lot of his life in rural Arkansas, fostering a deep love of nature as he grew into an grownup. His creative journey started in church pews, watching his father, a rustic preacher, and making an attempt to attract the little Christian fish image from his dad’s bible—then including eyeballs and fins till he was drawing fish.
That childhood fascination grew to become a profession. At this time, Hada operates Rivertown Gallery in Mountain House, the place artwork patrons enter to buy his well-liked trout and panorama work for his or her companies and private collections. His work seems on Arkansas’s official trout stamps, license plates, and—notably—contained in the Norfork Nationwide Fish Hatchery, the place an earlier Hada mural greets guests to the power that provides the White River’s rainbow trout.
In 2022, the Arkansas Recreation and Fish Fee inducted Hada into the Arkansas Out of doors Corridor of Fame—the identical honor beforehand bestowed upon Whitlock himself.
The gallery additionally carries work by Dave Whitlock and legendary fly tier Davy Wotton, making Hada not simply an artist of this neighborhood however a steward of its artistic legacy.
The Legend: Dave Whitlock (1934–2022)
To grasp why Bull Shoals is constructing a 50-foot mural for one man, it’s important to perceive what Dave Whitlock meant to fly fishing—and particularly to Arkansas.
Whitlock died at age 88 on November 23, 2022, in Tulsa. He was born on November 11, 1934, in Muskogee, Oklahoma. By age eight, he was smitten for all times with fly fishing by way of a fascination with the L.L. Bean catalog. When he requested his grandfather in regards to the fly rods pictured inside, he was advised fly fishing was “a wealthy man’s sport.” Whitlock spent the remainder of his life proving in any other case.
The Patterns That Modified Fly Fishing
Oklahoma fly tyer Dave Whitlock conceived Dave’s Hopper within the Nineteen Fifties when he was dissatisfied with the efficiency of the Joe’s Hopper sample. The fly he created—combining components of Joe’s Hopper and the Muddler Minnow—is, internationally, one of the crucial well-liked hopper flies in the marketplace immediately.
However the Hopper was just the start. Whitlock’s designs embody the Pink Fox Squirrel Nymph, NearNuff Crayfish, Sheep Minnow, Dave’s Cricket, and dozens extra. Paul Schullery, in American Flyfishing: A Historical past, described him as “simply probably essentially the most influential American fly tier since World Warfare II.”
Fly Fisherman journal named him among the many most influential fly fishers in historical past, alongside Joe Brooks, Lee Wulff, and Lefty Kreh in 2021.
The Field That Introduced Wild Browns to Arkansas
Maybe no innovation higher captures Whitlock’s scientific thoughts than the Whitlock-Vibert Field System—a singular and environment friendly in-stream salmonoid egg incubator and nursery machine that he spent seven years researching and creating.
The Whitlock-Vibert Field was used to inventory what grew to become the world report brown trout within the White and Norfork River programs. Underneath the sponsorship of the Federation of Fly Fishers, this system is now used worldwide to introduce or improve wild trout, char, and salmon populations.
From 1980 to 1990, the White River Fly Fishers, North Arkansas Fly Fishers, Inexperienced Nation Fly Fishers, and Arkansas Fly Fishers bought and planted 100,000 brown trout eggs every year utilizing Whitlock’s system—eggs sourced from Bitterroot River fish close to Missoula, Montana. The consequence: a self-sustaining brown trout inhabitants that produced two world data.
Conservation as a Approach of Life
Whitlock’s legacy extends past patterns and deal with. All through his life, Whitlock helped Baxter County develop Dry Run Creek into one in every of America’s high fishing streams—a singular fishery designed to accommodate youth underneath 16 and mobility-impaired anglers adjoining to the Norfork Hatchery.
He and his spouse Emily additionally took half in stopping the destruction of Crooked Creek, which is taken into account top-of-the-line smallmouth bass fishing streams within the nation. When mining operations within the early 2000s eliminated timber and vegetation, elevating water temperatures till the creek was declared impaired, the Whitlocks and the Associates of the North Fork and White Rivers Inc. took political motion and had been in a position to cease the mining. Crooked Creek stays a premier smallmouth vacation spot immediately.
The White River: His Favourite and His Mission
“I’ve a love-hate relationship with the White, my favourite river for 45 years,” Whitlock wrote. “It stems from a mix of the White’s magnificence, fertility, and glorious fishing for many huge trout—and the unpredictable water ranges, giant numbers of anglers who kill their each day restrict two or 3 times a day, and the occasional mismanagement of one of many world’s best trout fisheries.”
That clear-eyed devotion—celebrating the river whereas preventing for its safety—outlined Whitlock’s method to conservation. “The White in all probability doesn’t want extra fishing strain,” he wrote, “however it does want much more fly-fishing pals who will assist to revive this fishery.”
Why This Mural Issues Now
The timing of the Whitlock mural carries particular weight. Arkansas’s trout fisheries are recovering from an historic disaster: catastrophic die-offs on the Norfork Nationwide Fish Hatchery and flood injury on the Jim Hinkle Spring River State Fish Hatchery worn out nearly all of the state’s trout manufacturing in 2025. New restrictive harvest laws took impact February 1, 2026, as wildlife managers work to rebuild fish populations.
Towards that backdrop, a memorial to Whitlock isn’t simply nostalgia—it’s an announcement about what Bull Shoals values: stewardship, scientific innovation, and the idea that world-class fisheries don’t occur by chance.
“The issues that actually transfer individuals, I consider, is if you see children which have come out of therapy for most cancers and their dad and mom or grandparents carry them up right here to fish,” stated Steve Blumreich of the Associates of the Norfork and White River, talking at a 2024 bench dedication for Whitlock at Dry Run Creek.
A mural on Central Boulevard extends that imaginative and prescient past the creek banks. By putting Whitlock’s picture and legacy within the on a regular basis streetscape—not tucked inside a clubhouse or museum—Bull Shoals is declaring that this historical past belongs to everybody who walks these sidewalks, not solely those that know the distinction between a Sowbug and a Scud.
The Group Behind the Canvas
The mural undertaking is being promoted via fly-fishing neighborhood channels, together with Mid-South Fly Fishers, which has run a devoted fundraising push. The ribbon chopping will acknowledge people and companies who helped make the undertaking potential.
Donors who contribute $100 or extra obtain a commemorative T-shirt that includes a photograph of Hada’s Whitlock portray—a small token for many who need to carry a bit of this tribute residence.
Sowbug Roundup 2026: The Good Setting
The mural’s unveiling falls throughout the 2026 Sowbug Roundup (March 26–28), the annual fly-tying and fly-fishing exposition that pulls attendees from all 50 states and a number of other international locations to Mountain House and the encompassing space.
The present boasts 150 skilled fly tyers, over 20 distributors, each day auctions and raffles, free seminars, free fly-tying lessons, and free casting classes. Entry is simply $10 for all three days—and adults accompanied by kids get in free.
Whitlock was a fixture at Sowbug for many years. The fishing legend handed after visiting Mountain House to attend his final Sowbug Roundup in 2022. It was, in some ways, a homecoming.
What We Don’t Know But
Public sources don’t but present a finalized rendering or detailed description of the mural’s full composition—whether or not it options Whitlock’s portrait, particular river scenes, iconic fly patterns, or symbolic components. Progress photographs from the artist or commissioning group haven’t been publicly posted as of this writing.
What we do know: when Duane Hada paints water, he makes use of water from the stream itself. “I try this out of comfort,” he has stated, “but in addition I feel, secondarily, that one thing about that lifeblood of that stream will get captured in that portray.”
For a mural honoring Dave Whitlock, in a city whose identification flows from the river under Bull Shoals Dam, that appears precisely proper.
Occasion Particulars
Dave Whitlock Memorial Mural Ribbon Slicing
Date: Thursday, March 26, 2026
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Needs & Fishes Fly Store (Jimmy T’s), 627 Central Blvd., Bull Shoals, AR
Sowbug Roundup 2026
Dates: March 26–28, 2026
Location: Baxter County Fairgrounds, Mountain House, AR
Admission: $10 for all three days; adults with kids underneath 12 admitted free
Information: North Arkansas Fly Fishers
Trending Merchandise
