Weekend Fishing Report - May 3Rd

[Clay Goforth]

I was fortunate to be able to take my family to the river this past weekend with another family. While the wives kept the kids occupied, us husbands slipped off for a few hours on Saturday morning. We stayed in a rental house at Wildcat but because of the falling water from 2 units to 1 on Saturday morning, we drove down to Ranchette and put in there. It was cold first thing in the morning so we took a short boat ride down to Rough Hole and caught quite a few little stock rainbows from 12 - 14 inches. Boring, right?

Once it warmed up, I decided to make the run up to the bottom of Rim Shoals. We fished from the bottom of Rim Shoals down to Crooked Creek, picking up fish here and there.

Then I had something happen that I have not experienced in the 15+ years I have been fishing the White. We found a pocket of rainbows that were holding right at the top of that deep hole directly across from Crooked Creek and down river slightly that were all 2lb+ fish. I know this is going to cause a fuss but because we didn't think we would spend but a couple of hours on the water, we didn't bring a camera or phone. (cue the trolls)

We pulled 10 fish out of this hole, all on black 1/16oz jigs, and the smallest was 16 inches. The largest was a fat 22 incher. The other 8 were all sitting between 17 and 20 inches. I have not seen anything like that particular pocket of fish before. I don't know if the AGFC stocked a bunch of them or what, but it was a lot of fun. We would run just up above, get on a drift line, and cast out toward the middle of the river just before the gravel bar dropped off. Let it sit...2...3...4...SET THE HOOK!

And then I had a run in with a guide who, as we were on the drift, motored his boat with 2 clients up to within 20 feet of the back of my boat and threw out a drag chain, "low hole-ing me." He had seen all the fish we were pulling out and, I guess I can't blame him for wanting to stop us from showing him up in front of his paying clientele. So, I proceeded to fire up the trolling motor, move further out into the river, and float past him. And as luck would have it, we pulled a double off the side of his boat as we drifted by, earning a thumbs up from one of his clients.

Altogether, we fished about 3 hours, boating 63 fish. The hot colors were all black and a combo I tied that was yellow olive and sculpin.

And, just because I am a proud dad, here is my four year old fishing from the bank with a spinning rod. That's right, my 4 year old is fishing by herself with a spinning rod. That's what no video games and very limited tv will do for you.

And then here is a picture of the river at wildcat just below the house where we stayed. Sorry for no fish pictures.

[Ham]

Good Deal Clay. I haven't been on the White in a while, but now that the weather is getting more stable, I have a lot of promised trips to fulfill.

[Yakfly]

Nice report - Sounds like size of rainbows that you typically catch at Rim - maybe they just migrated down. I've caught some nice ones in that deep section just above Shoestring that you describe, but never that many. I'm usually in a yak and only get one shot at them.

Nice pics by the way. Much better than some ol' fish.