Post edited 9:37 am – February 4, 2010 by fiveweight

Just got back from the White around opener. Joe, who a few of you have met, and I got down on Thursday and fished Friday through Tuesday. Other than seeing Jimmy T, we didn't bump into anyone else we knew which was sort of unusual but we were told the weather and high water kept a lot of people off the water. We got about 8-10″ of snow the first day we were there and most of it was falling while we were (the only boat) on the water. With the exception of late Monday afternoon they kept the generators running 6-7 units the entire time.

We were each armed with a 5-weight rod rigged for deep indie fishing, a heavier streamer rod with floating line, and a spinning rod. This turned out to be a pretty good combination as it allowed us to focus on deep water while still being to throw something at the shallower shoals as we came by them, but a second spool of sink tip line for the streamer rods would have opened up more possibilities. There was no magic fly we could find but the pattern seemed to be consistent once we figured it out – use whatever means you can to get down as far as possible. Most fish came from the shallow sloping sides, but more browns were along the outside bend banks. We were catching fish regularly on larger egg patterns, san juan worms, and deep diving cranks. The streamers weren't as effective because we both had floating line, but they took their share too especially on Monday night when we fished the opener at 1 am from the boat dock by the soccer park. We were drifting from as far up as we could (state park the first three days) down to a couple bends below white hole. A lot of boats were running back and forth for about 300 yards along the hellen keller hole on Monday and Tuesday. Despite giving it extra attention we found that spot to be more crowded and not much more productive than the rest of the river. Several people who we'd seen in that area later told us they hooked some nice browns. Most of ours came downstream. Joe caught the two biggest – 17.5″ and 18.5″. We also caught several nice rainbows up to about 16 or 17″. Numbers were 6 fish the first day, 12, 18, 55 (including night fishing, which was awesome), and 35 the last day.