Gaston's White River Resort and the grass strip in Arkansas where you taxi up to a trout dinner

Gaston’s White River Resort in Lakeview, Arkansas is a fly-in destination where you land a small airplane on a 3,200-foot grass strip along the White River and taxi up to a trout dinner just 100 feet from the restaurant door. Charted as 3M0 but known to every pilot simply as “Gaston’s,” the strip has been groomed like a putting green for more than 60 years. It is one of the few places in American aviation where you can fly in, park on the grass, and eat fresh White River trout while looking at the river it came from.

What Is Gaston’s White River Resort?

Gaston’s is a riverside resort on the east bank of the White River in the Ozark hills of northern Arkansas. It offers roughly 70 cottages, a large restaurant, a boat dock, and a private turf airstrip that runs right alongside the water.

The river here is cold, clear, and fast year-round. It’s tailwater released from the base of Bull Shoals Dam, coming out of the deep, cold water at the bottom of the lake. That cold water grows some of the biggest rainbow and brown trout in the country, drawing anglers from around the world — and many of them arrive by air.

The resort blends two worlds that rarely meet: world-class trout fishing and general aviation. You can catch your own trout in the morning and have the restaurant cook exactly what you caught.

The History: How Six Boats Became a Fly-In Resort

The story starts in the late 1950s, when a man named Al Gaston ran a modest operation of a few rustic cabins and just six boats on the river.

His son, Jim Gaston, took over in 1958 with a vision most people around him thought was a little crazy. Jim loved airplanes, and he believed that if he built a runway on the riverbank, pilots would come. So he cut a strip out of the bottomland, seeded it, and groomed it by hand.

He was right. The pilots came, and they kept coming. Jim turned six boats and a handful of cabins into a full resort with dozens of cottages, a restaurant seating hundreds, and the grass strip that put Gaston’s on the aviation map.

Jim Gaston passed away in 2012, but his presence is everywhere. The restaurant walls are covered with aviation photos, old propellers, and signed memorabilia he collected over a lifetime — effectively a small museum of general aviation that you walk through on your way to a table.

What Is the Flying Like at Gaston’s?

This is real flying that rewards preparation. The strip sits in a river valley with rising terrain all around, so the pattern is nothing like a flat, open practice area. You descend down into the valley with trees on either side and the river off your wing.

Conditions change through the day. Calm mornings often bring glass-smooth air. Summer afternoons can turn the valley bumpy, and density altitude climbs in the heat. Plan your arrival accordingly and have your speeds nailed before you get there.

The reward is the approach itself: the hills wrap around you, the river appears like a silver thread, and a perfect green strip emerges from the bottomland. The mains kiss the turf, and you roll out toward the river with the smell of the kitchen drifting across the field.

What Pilots Need to Know Before Flying In

Gaston’s demands a current, competent, well-prepared pilot. A few critical planning items:

No fuel on the field. There is no avgas available at Gaston’s, period. Tanker in what you need or top off at a nearby airport before descending into the valley. Always have an out.
Turf runway, ~3,200 feet, oriented roughly with the river.
Real obstacles. Trees and terrain on the approach, with power lines a serious consideration on one end. Study the strip before you go and call ahead to talk with someone who has flown in.
Get grass experience first. If you’ve never landed on turf, this is not the place to learn. Get some grass time with an instructor before you fly the Ozarks.

The runway itself is immaculate — it rolls, it drains, and it’s mowed to an even, fairway-smooth length. As one of the people who maintains it put it, the secret is mowing it about a thousand times a year and loving it like it’s your own.

The Restaurant: Dinner on the Riverbank

The dining room has a wall of windows looking out over the White River. Drift boats slide past, sometimes with an angler fighting a fish, while your airplane sits parked on the grass outside.

The signature dish is White River trout, served fresh from the same cold water you’re watching. Order it off the menu or bring in what you caught that morning and they’ll cook it. The trout almondine, with toasted almonds and a side of hush puppies, is a standout.

This is the “hundred dollar hamburger” — the classic pilot’s fly-out for a meal — taken to its final form. Except it’s fresh trout, eaten beside the river it came from, with someone’s Piper taxiing past the window.

Can You Camp Under Your Wing at Gaston’s?

Yes. Gaston’s offers something increasingly rare in American aviation: you can camp under your wing right on the grass. Pull up beside your airplane, pitch a tent on the riverbank, and spend the night for very little.

If camping isn’t your style, some of the cottages sit right at the edge of the field. You can watch airplanes come and go from your front porch with a cup of coffee in hand.

It’s the kind of place that builds the next generation of pilots — the seven-year-old flying a model airplane around the ramp today, watching every landing with his mouth open, is how a lifelong aviator starts.

Key Takeaways

Gaston’s White River Resort (3M0) in Lakeview, Arkansas, lets you land on a grass strip and taxi to a riverside restaurant about 100 feet away.
The 3,200-foot turf runway has been groomed for over 60 years and runs alongside the trout-rich White River.
There is no fuel on the field — plan your fuel carefully and always have an alternate.
The approach sits in a river valley with trees, terrain, and power lines; it rewards prepared pilots and is not the place to learn grass landings.
You can camp under your wing or stay in a cottage at the edge of the airstrip, and eat fresh White River trout caught that morning.