Report, A Few Days Late...

[West Fork Jason]

Stayed at Quarry Park for a long weekend (?16th-20th ish?). Super nice place to stay in the area! Especially, this time of year the campground is virtually empty. I asked the nice folks tasked with being caretakers when it starts to get busy, they said around the end of March. Super DELUXE having the river out the front door of the tent.

TONS of shad came through during my stay. The attached picture below of the typical White River hatchery system rainbow trout and it's GORGED belly was indicative of a lot of the rainbows. Didn't notice the huge bellies as much on the larger cutties and browns. Even when wading at low water, I was amazed at a few fish eating size 18 scud patterns and then puking up shad 6 six at a time. (flashy scuds tied with some bright colors mixed in worked well that day, overcast conditions) How could they even be hungry?

Pretty much fished the kitchen sink - Drift boat at falling water, drift boat at high water, jet boat, waders...

- streamers large and small (white and naturals), midges and scuds at low water, shad patterns at different depths and on the surface. If something wasn't working, just kept switching it up.

The morning I left, I sat at the campsite packing up, enjoying some STRONG coffee from the french press watching the gulls go to town on the shad. I remembered the steelhead rod that made the road trip down, an 11' 6 weight switch. The fast water by the boat launch was not getting touched by the couple of guys fishing nymphs. Running something white on the end of a big chunk of sink tip, down and dirty like sure seemed like a great idea. So I busted out the two hander, got it all rigged up, and....they shut off the water! I'll have to try it next winter I guess.... oh well....that's tailwater fishing...it's sure better than drilling holes through the ice to find open water back home in Wisco. (early catch and release starts next weekend, probably have to dodge ice bergs coming down the river...)

Got to get out with Ham a couple of days, he's a super fishy local forum member.

And thanks to the guys at Dally's, they are doing things right!!!

J

[Ham]

Jason ONLY uses Flyrods and he mostly fishes musky back home so he was pretty locked in on the hero or zero big streamer deal. He had an extended follow from a GIANT Brown on the White. He also got all four species of trout, but not all on the same day.

Maybe next time.

I did get him to use his 4 weight a little bit. He's good with that too.

I enjoyed fishing with you again. I also enjoyed meeting Duke the International dog of mystery.

Throw us a fishing report from the land of beer and cheese from time to time OK?

[West Fork Jason]

"extended follow from a GIANT Brown"

Shhhhhh..... There are no big browns in the White anymore....they all swam out to the Mississippi, around the east coast, and into Lake Michigan via the St. Lawrence Seaway....