White Buffalo Reels in Fishing Enthusiasts

The 16-acre White Buffalo Resort offers anglers a chance at two different rivers. It’s located at the confluence of the Buffalo and White Rivers.

Visitors can hook smallmouth bass on the Buffalo or drive to nearby Cotter for a six-hour trout-fishing float down the White River and back to the resort.

In its busiest summer months, the resort, located 12 miles southwest of Mountain Home, attracts about 60 percent families and a 40 percent angler clientele, said Tom Dame, who co-owns the resort with sister Nancy Dame Moore. The rest of its eight season months, it’s all sportsmen.

Moore and Dame bought White Buffalo in 2000. Since then, the resort has seen a 16 percent increase in repeat business year over year, bringing its repeat customers to about 70 percent annually, Dame said.

He said the location’s beauty alone lures visitors, but a marketing plan doesn’t hurt.

“The previous owner’s business plan did not include marketing,” Dame said. “It didn’t include any marketing towards corporations.”

Dame said the previous owners relied solely on new visitors to the market.

Dame is an executive vice president and loan manager for Arvest Bank Group Inc. for its three-county North Central Arkansas group. He said he’s had 28 years to monitor the success and failures of quite a few small businesses. He originally bought the resort as a retirement project, but has since returned to Arvest full time after the resort stabilized.

Dame and Moore wanted a resort that would allow for expansion.

When the pair bought the business, they added seven more cabins, 14 more johnboats for rental and 10 more canoes. They also added a dining facility and another boat dock.

Dame said about 400 (or 23 percent) of the 1,800 visitors the resort sees each year are on corporate outings. Room sales account for 60 percent of revenue, recreational vehicle utility hookup sales account for 25 percent, and White Buffalo’s outfitter’s segment accounts for 15 percent.

He said he sees visitors from Texas, Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas.

“As you break down the total cost per guest that they bring, I think there is a lot of service they receive based on dollars they have to spend per guest [corporate clients],” Dame said.

The property has three cabins that sleep up to 14 people each. For a two-night stay and one-day guide trip, it would cost an employer about $160 per person for a group of 10 or more, Dame said.

Reeling It In

The last catch data available from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is from 1998.

In the area between Rim Shoals and the Buffalo River, 150,000 angler hours were expended and 63,000 rainbow trout were harvested from March 1997 through February of 1998, said Stan Todd, assistant trout biologist for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. In addition, 76,000 rainbow trout, and 3,000 brown trout were caught and released during the same period. That area is located about 10 miles upstream from the White Buffalo Resort.

Between the Buffalo and North Fork River, about eight miles downstream from White Buffalo Resort, about 98,000 angler hours were expended during that same time. About 40,000 rainbow trout and 90 brown trout were harvested from March 1997 to February 1998. In addition 33,000 rainbow trout and 3,000 brown trout were caught and released during the same period.