2009 has been a funny year on the White River system, at times the fishing has been amazingly spectacular, though wade fishers have still had to contend with unfavorable water for much of the year.
We started with high flows left over from the 2008 floods, but which had produced some serious growth in both rainbows and browns, and walked into one of the best shad kills for years. Shad were an influence as far downriver as Buffalo City, and who could forget John Arthur’s monster 27″ brown taken with guide Clint Wilkinson.
The caddis hatches of March and April were amazing but waders only struck it well for a week around Sowbug, with even boat fishers watching the caddis come off like clockwork for weeks, seemingly unmolested by the trout. Hopefully they will be as prolific this year.
Similarly the PMD hatches of early summer were phenomenal but rarely were fly fishers able to target dry fly feeders, the Journal had a couple of memorable days, but higher flows kept the fish feeding deep. The insensity and spread of the hatches certainly seemed to be particularly strong in ’09.
Instead for a lot of the crew around the shop, spring and summer was streamer time, fishing the higher flows with larger articulated flies on heavy sinking fly lines. This style of fishing is growing in popularity on the higher flows, and new developments in rods and fly lines is making it more accessible.
In September we finally got some good wadeable water, and a bunch of old faces returning. But so did the rain pushing the lakes back up into flood levels, indeed there was so much water in the system. The White operated through most of the last half of Ovtober and through November, on relatively low flows.
But the Corp’s insistence on using the number of generator units on its real time flows recorded message, instead of the more accurate cfs, meant a lot of people thought they could stay away from some spectacular fly fishing. There were a lot of places on the river that were wadeable, particularly if you have access to a boat for transport.
And the boat fishing was spectacular on midges eggs and worms, with 80 to 100 fish in the boat days occuring regularly.
2010 should be another great year for fish condition. The high water of recent weeks has been fattening up the trout, and we are expecting another very good shad kill. A lot, shad kill included, will depend on the water flows we get and the rainfall.
Two successive years of record high rainfalls can only be an abberation, and perhaps we are headed for another dry cycle. So much remains in the laps of the Corp and the fishing gods.
What we can be sure is that we at the Mountain River Fly Shop will be doing our damndest to make sure youget the best advice, the friendliest service and exactly what you need to have the same sort of fun we do on the White River.
We have some really cool new stuff headed in for 2010 we are going to be bringing in more quality flies that you need for this waterway, we have some cool events being planned and the fishing as always is going to be very very good
From all of us at the Fly Shop
Happy New Year
WHITE RIVER: Funny flow pattern for the Holidays, the white has been off from midnight to the early morning house, offering some wading downstream during the day, then running up to 10,000 cfs plus during the morning as people turn on their heaters, slowing down to low levels during the afternoon, then up again during the cooler evening.
We would expect this to start ramping back up next week, but there shoudl be a good mix of wadeable and boat fishing water this weekend.
Midges have been very strong during the lower water periods, eggs and worms on the higher flows
