Bsd To Gaston's Report March 7,8,9,10

[BFTMASTER]

March 7- Leave Tulsa after work around 6:00pm. After a few stops, we arrive at the Cabin around 11:15pm, jump out of the truck to meet the other guys who came earlier. Grab the Falcon Light action with a Rainbow Trout Rapala Cd-3 and hit an eddy line coming off a wing wall. Using my usual technique of making the rod tip twitch rapidly while holding the tip down and reeling slowly.Third cast results in an explosive hit, but he got off. Next cast, same area, bam hook up and tight. Good fight for 2lb. flourocarbon. Finally get the fish close and I turn on my headlamp to see a beautiful Brown Trout of around 2 pounds. I thought,man this is going to be a good trip!!

We continued to fish till around 2:30am with limited success on smaller rainbows. Most being caught by the buddies on Powerbait. Water was probably running a low CFS 2 unit.

March 8- Wake up to thunder claps followed by straight down rain. After breakfast the guys rolled powerbait on barrel sinker drift rigs, while standing under the covered dock. I caught a couple bouncing a sculpin/ginger jig with orange speckled head, but the guys with powerbait were producing more. Water was probably running Med. CFS on two units.

Around 11:00am or so the rain looks to be letting up enough to get the boat out. On goes the rain gear, in goes the beer, and off we go upstream with only (1) other boat on the river. Powered all the way up to across from state park dock. Drifted once across the gravel area, picked-up a nice 14" rainbow on a Brown Trout CD-3 Rapala, with no other action. Next, we try to anchor in our usual spot against the bank across from state park. Not a good idea...after about thirty minutes the water started to run harder and without much notice the motor man noticed the water was about to come in on the upstream transom corner because everybody was facing downstream and leaning upstream. A few scary minutes later we cut rope on the back anchor and tied a bucket to the rope so that we could retrieve it after we drove out the front anchor. Lucky us, some quick thinking and we were out of trouble. Lesson #1 learned. I have fished in a rented boat on the White for over 8 years a couple trips a year of at least 3 days on the water each time, and I had never been in "almost" trouble like that. Not that deadly, because we were within ten feet of the far bank, but the tackle lost would have easily exceeded $2000 for our boat, and we would have had to cross the river somehow to get back to warm and dry.

Moral of this story.....watch where and when you anchor....and don't do stupid dung...especially when there is no boats on the river, but this was only White River lesson #1, the next lesson is much more tiring and less dangerous.

After the scary run in with rising water, it started to rain frogs and hogs. With one man on scupper the whole time to get the rain water out the boat, we decided to head back to the dock and wait out the biggest rain of the year. Even while under the cover of the dock the rain soaked us so we headed to the cabin to watch it pour for the next couple hours.

Around 3:30pm the rain started to lighten up and the radar showed the end of the rain. We loaded up the boat and headed downstream and drift fished the far bank from Newland's to Cane island. Finally, regular hook ups with decent rainbows. Using the "drop and bop" technique I continued to catch around 11 rainbows on 3/32nds Olive Marabou Jig with Olive/Black speckled Head. The other guys did well on jigs and drifting powerbait as well. Once, you get the hang of working the marabou jigs the action really gets warmed up. Lots of hook ups and offs, as well as fish chasing the jigs all the way to the boat. After snagging a rope in boat, I flattened the barb. I must say, I think I caught more fish with it flattened. I think it made it easier to get the hook to penetrate...I don't know, but the rest of the trip

I had a very good catch ratio to hook up ratio with a barbless jig...just saying not such a bad thing.

Up from Cane Island before the shoals, we anchored on gravel bottom (so there was not a replay of earlier). My buddies did really well with Chartruese Powerbait eggs tight-lined just before the water heads into the shoals. Some really nice fat rainbows come over the gunnels, day saver. I caught a nice 18" Brown on a Rapala "Brook Trout" CD-3. Very next cast, do the same thing....Cast out...count to 10 and retrieve slowly really "wagging" the rod tip....Bam a fat rainbow around the same size as the Brown. They came from the same spot, using the same technique. The last hours of the day were spent dry and fish filled. I think if we were keeping fish, everyone would have had a limit in 2 1/2 hours. Nice turn around for a wet day.

March 9- Wake up early to cold temps., frosted windshields and dock ramps. Everyone prepares to be cold, wearing multiple layers cause we have experienced very cold boat rides in years past. Once again we motor up stream, this time all the way to the catch and release area. The water was running fairly good and if we were going to fish this mecca area now was the window. Everyone ties a jig on, smashes the barbs and we proceed to catch some feisty rainbows. One fish I caught is the stuff I dream of. I cast over a submerged log in the middle of the river and as I begin to pull the jig across it, a nice rainbow grabs it for a split second...he is on then off....then as the current pushes my jig parallel about a foot off the log, the fish doubles back and nails it, mean while I am watching everything. I love that kind of action no matter how big the fish is. Bouncing jigs until we get down to State Park area, everyone lands a couple fish. I can't stress enough while jig fishing that you have to tune the action the fish want for the day, but once you get the bounce right, you can almost predict the hits.

Does not take long and everyone is ready to shed some layers. Absolute blue bird day, could not ask for a nicer day to make up for the rain.

March 10- Another Blue Bird day but the worst hang over our "boys' weekend" has ever had in (8) years. Jack Daniels made an appearance friday night and stayed till about noon the next day. It was bad enough that I peeked around the door into the bathroom, just to make sure that Mike Tyson's Tiger was not in the bath tub. Also, looked in the mirror to see if I had any new tattoos on my face. Anyways, a slow start did not get us on the river until about 9:30, but the water was still running and that made for a great day of fishing out of the boat. We drifted down to cane Island. I alternated between the rapala cd-3 and marabou jigs. My buddies did the same, but alternated with powerbait drifted. For a while, I was killing them, then the powerbait started to catch up. One of my buddies was fishing a threaded night crawler with a kernal of corn to hide the hook point. He would go hours with not a hit, but when he did hook up it was always a nicer fish. Matter of fact, he won the "Big Fish" pot with a 2.20lb. brown, which was promptly wieghed and released, using a worm.

We drifted and anchored here and there, with the best fishing being within site of Gaston's both upstream and downstream. Thats where we filled our limits for the fish fry later in the evening. Here is where Lesson #2 comes into play. I wanted to go downstream past Stetsons to fish some areas that I had good luck with while fishing with a guide last year. So mid afternoon we drift and motor down that way. Well, we we got the area was packed with guides/clients, kayakers with zinc on there noses, canoes etc. Looked like mardi gras without the girls. We tried it for a few minutes and got frustrated when we saw a boat of anglers slowly motoring upstream, fishing jigs and rapalas...they had already covered the area we were going fish....with the same lures. I watched one guy use the same action that I "developed" (just kidding). Anyways, we decided to head back up stream, and that's where it got interesting. Apparently, in our hung overness, we failed to notice the RIver was dropping. Luckily, we made it most of the way back to the dock before it got really shallow. We were making pretty good time with the front guy watching for rocks and giving the driver hand signals until we got to Cane Island shoals. From here, we had to get out of the boat and pull it through the shallows for about 1/8 of a mile or so.

Moral of this story #2, Watch the river levels....and always have a pair of waders in the boat

All in All, it was good to get back on the White with some buddies.

Also, for all those interested: I spied some massive Walleyes hugging the bottom in several areas. Not suckers, not carp, not drum but walleyes, some huge.

All of my jigs were ordered from Lilley's Landing Tackle Store, and I was more than pleased.

-Hope you enjoy my report

-Bft

[shawncat]

LOL,had trips like dat,good read.

[gotmuddy]

good report.