Duane Hada Paints Memorial Mural Honoring Fly-Fishing Icon Dave Whitlock

The Ozark artist is creating a permanent tribute to the man who helped make Arkansas’s White River a world-class fishery. Image courtesy of Duane Hada’s Rivertown Gallery

Renowned Ozark artist Duane Hada is painting a memorial tribute to Dave Whitlock, the Oklahoma-born fly-fishing legend who spent more than four decades on the White River and whose innovations—from the ubiquitous Dave’s Hopper to the Whitlock-Vibert Box egg incubator system—helped establish north-central Arkansas as a destination 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, just two days into that year’s Sowbug Roundup, the nation’s premier fly-tying exposition that Whitlock attended faithfully until his final years.

The Artist: Duane Hada

Few artists could be better suited to this commission than Hada, an Ozark native whose work sits at the intersection of wildlife art, Ozark landscapes, and fly-fishing culture.

Born in Boone County, Arkansas, Hada has spent much of his life in rural Arkansas, fostering a deep love of nature as he grew into an adult. His artistic journey began in church pews, watching his father, a country preacher, and trying to draw the little Christian fish symbol from his dad’s bible—then adding eyeballs and fins until he was drawing fish.

That childhood fascination became a career. Today, Hada operates Rivertown Gallery in Mountain Home, where art buyers enter to purchase his popular trout and landscape paintings for their businesses and personal collections. His work appears on Arkansas’s official trout stamps, license plates, and—notably—inside the Norfork National Fish Hatchery, where an earlier Hada mural greets visitors to the facility that supplies the White River’s rainbow trout.

In 2022, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission inducted Hada into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame—the same honor previously bestowed upon Whitlock himself.

The gallery also carries work by Dave Whitlock and legendary fly tier Davy Wotton, making Hada not just an artist of this community but a steward of its creative legacy.

The Legend: Dave Whitlock (1934–2022)

To understand why Bull Shoals is building a 50-foot mural for one man, you have to understand what Dave Whitlock meant to fly fishing—and specifically 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 life with fly fishing via a fascination with the L.L. Bean catalog. When he asked his grandfather about the fly rods pictured inside, he was told fly fishing was “a rich man’s sport.” Whitlock spent the rest of his life proving otherwise.

The Patterns That Changed Fly Fishing

Oklahoma fly tyer Dave Whitlock conceived Dave’s Hopper in the 1950s when he was dissatisfied with the performance of the Joe’s Hopper pattern. The fly he created—combining elements of Joe’s Hopper and the Muddler Minnow—is, internationally, one of the most popular hopper flies on the market today.

But the Hopper was just the beginning. Whitlock’s designs include the Red Fox Squirrel Nymph, NearNuff Crayfish, Sheep Minnow, Dave’s Cricket, and dozens more. Paul Schullery, in American Flyfishing: A History, described him as “just possibly the most influential American fly tier since World War II.”

Fly Fisherman magazine named him among the most influential fly fishers in history, alongside Joe Brooks, Lee Wulff, and Lefty Kreh in 2021.

The Box That Brought Wild Browns to Arkansas

Perhaps no innovation better captures Whitlock’s scientific mind than the Whitlock-Vibert Box System—a unique and efficient in-stream salmonoid egg incubator and nursery device that he spent seven years researching and developing.

The Whitlock-Vibert Box was used to stock what became the world record brown trout in the White and Norfork River systems. Under the sponsorship of the Federation of Fly Fishers, the program is now used worldwide to introduce or enhance wild trout, char, and salmon populations.

From 1980 to 1990, the White River Fly Fishers, North Arkansas Fly Fishers, Green Country Fly Fishers, and Arkansas Fly Fishers purchased and planted 100,000 brown trout eggs each year using Whitlock’s system—eggs sourced from Bitterroot River fish near Missoula, Montana. The result: a self-sustaining brown trout population that produced two world records.

Conservation as a Way of Life

Whitlock’s legacy extends beyond patterns and tackle. Throughout his life, Whitlock helped Baxter County develop Dry Run Creek into one of America’s top fishing streams—a unique fishery designed to accommodate youth under 16 and mobility-impaired anglers adjacent to the Norfork Hatchery.

He and his wife Emily also took part in preventing the destruction of Crooked Creek, which is considered one of the best smallmouth bass fishing streams in the nation. When mining operations in the early 2000s removed trees and vegetation, raising water temperatures until the creek was declared impaired, the Whitlocks and the Friends of the North Fork and White Rivers Inc. took political action and were able to stop the mining. Crooked Creek remains a premier smallmouth destination today.

The White River: His Favorite and His Mission

“I have a love-hate relationship with the White, my favorite river for 45 years,” Whitlock wrote. “It stems from a combination of the White’s beauty, fertility, and excellent fishing for lots of big trout—and the unpredictable water levels, large numbers of anglers who kill their daily limit two or three times a day, and the occasional mismanagement of one of the world’s most productive trout fisheries.”

That clear-eyed devotion—celebrating the river while fighting for its protection—defined Whitlock’s approach to conservation. “The White probably doesn’t need more fishing pressure,” he wrote, “but it does need a lot more fly-fishing friends who will help to restore this fishery.”

Why This Mural Matters Now

The timing of the Whitlock mural carries special weight. Arkansas’s trout fisheries are recovering from an historic crisis: catastrophic die-offs at the Norfork National Fish Hatchery and flood damage at the Jim Hinkle Spring River State Fish Hatchery wiped out the majority of the state’s trout production in 2025. New restrictive harvest regulations took effect February 1, 2026, as wildlife managers work to rebuild fish populations.

Against that backdrop, a memorial to Whitlock isn’t just nostalgia—it’s a statement about what Bull Shoals values: stewardship, scientific innovation, and the belief that world-class fisheries don’t happen by accident.

“The things that really move people, I believe, is when you see kids that have come out of treatment for cancer and their parents or grandparents bring them up here to fish,” said Steve Blumreich of the Friends of the Norfork and White River, speaking at a 2024 bench dedication for Whitlock at Dry Run Creek.

A mural on Central Boulevard extends that vision beyond the creek banks. By placing Whitlock’s image and legacy in the everyday streetscape—not tucked inside a clubhouse or museum—Bull Shoals is declaring that this history belongs to everyone who walks these sidewalks, not only those who know the difference between a Sowbug and a Scud.

The Community Behind the Canvas

The mural project is being promoted through fly-fishing community channels, including Mid-South Fly Fishers, which has run a dedicated fundraising push. The ribbon cutting will recognize individuals and businesses who helped make the project possible.

Donors who contribute $100 or more receive a commemorative T-shirt featuring a photo of Hada’s Whitlock painting—a small token for those who want to carry a piece of this tribute home.

Sowbug Roundup 2026: The Perfect Setting

The mural’s unveiling falls during the 2026 Sowbug Roundup (March 26–28), the annual fly-tying and fly-fishing exposition that draws attendees from all 50 states and several countries to Mountain Home and the surrounding area.

The show boasts 150 expert fly tyers, over 20 vendors, daily auctions and raffles, free seminars, free fly-tying classes, and free casting lessons. Entry is just $10 for all three days—and adults accompanied by children get in free.

Whitlock was a fixture at Sowbug for decades. The fishing legend passed after visiting Mountain Home to attend his last Sowbug Roundup in 2022. It was, in many ways, a homecoming.

What We Don’t Know Yet

Public sources don’t yet provide a finalized rendering or detailed description of the mural’s full composition—whether it features Whitlock’s portrait, specific river scenes, iconic fly patterns, or symbolic elements. Progress photos from the artist or commissioning group have not been publicly posted as of this writing.

What we do know: when Duane Hada paints water, he uses water from the stream itself. “I do that out of convenience,” he has said, “but also I think, secondarily, that something about that lifeblood of that stream gets captured in that painting.”

For a mural honoring Dave Whitlock, in a town whose identity flows from the river below Bull Shoals Dam, that seems exactly right.

Event Details

Dave Whitlock Memorial Mural Ribbon Cutting
Date: Thursday, March 26, 2026
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Wishes & Fishes Fly Shop (Jimmy T’s), 627 Central Blvd., Bull Shoals, AR

Sowbug Roundup 2026
Dates: March 26–28, 2026
Location: Baxter County Fairgrounds, Mountain Home, AR
Admission: $10 for all three days; adults with children under 12 admitted free
Info: North Arkansas Fly Fishers