What started out as a dare, as most good things do, ended up in myself and Jimmy “T” Traylor cooking biscuits & gravy, blueberry pancakes, hash browns, 10lbs of bacon, and scrambled eggs at a boat ramp on the White River in single digit temps for about 25 of our closest fly fishing bretheren. For anyone that has fished the White River, February 1 is a special date, where they open the C&R area to fishing again, after being closed for 3 months for the spawn. Big fish are always caught in this section in the first week, and it isn’t uncommon for a 10lb trout or two to be caught from this section during the first week. We fed the guys from Chasing the Dream out of Oklahoma, the guys from Fly Fishing Illinois, and several other friends that showed up just to see if we were stupid enough to cook breakfast……..we were, and it was damn good.
The fishing wasn’t bad either. That morning, I broke 20″ with one of my largest rainbows to date from the White River, and several other boats boated fish in excess of 20″. The only issue with the fishing this morning, was we ran out of beer by the time we got to 3 Chutes and needed more, if we were going to float to White Hold. But never fear, JimmyT to the rescue…….thanks to Jimmy, I now tend to favor Sweet Tea & Sailor Jerry (affectionately named “Jimmy Tea”) as my drink of choice on trips. Jimmy shuttled us around to get the trailer and yank the boat out early so we could gear up for the night’s festivities.
All in all, the booze flowed and the social weekend that is opening day on the White River was kicked off properly. But not to be outdone with breakfast, we also had plans to throw a small little shindig at Wild Cat Shoals Boat Ramp that evening. With the help of Jeff House (High Plains Fly Fisher) and Craig Peterson, we grilled up about 60 bacon wrapped brats and served up some other goodness to about 50 people that showed up. It was sort of the who’s who of White River winter fishing with the likes of Steve Dally, Chad Johnson, Alex Lafkas, Jamie Rouse, Ron Yarbourough, Jim Traylor, Davy Wotton, Dominic Zamotto, Larry Babbin, Steve Stinnett, the guys from Chasing the Dream, and two many other people to really remember. It was definitely a great evening with plenty of alcohol drank for everyone, with the party going way in to the night, until only a few were standing. Here are the photos.