Four Chilly Days On The White

[John Berry]

I guided two groups of anglers for the last five days. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, my clients were from Minnesota and thought the weather was quite mild. Each day we fished a differant spot on the White and then went to the Norfork after the water fell out. We only wade fished. Tuesday we fished Wildcat Shoals and Rim Shoals. We absolutely whacked them. The hot flies were the partridge and orange soft hackle and zebra midge. On Wednesday we fished Roundhouse Shoals and had a really good day. The hot flies there were the Y2K and partridge and orange. On Thursday, we returned to Wildcat and had another great day on partridge and orange soft hackles. There was no one but us at any of the places we fished on all three days. The big fish were seventeen inch rainbows, most were fourteen inches and fat and sassy

The clients on Friday and Saturday were from Kansas and were accomplished anglers. We floated in the Rim Shoals area on Friday and absolutely slayed them. All of our fish were caught on zebra midges, brown with copper wire and copper beads and black with silver wire and silver beads all in size eighteen. We were in constant action all day and never felt the need to try any other flies. The big fish was a seventeen inch rainbow and we caught a lot of sixteens. We were the only ones floating that section that day.

[Yakfly]

Thanks for the report. I hope the water levels and fishing patterns hold for a couple more weeks, I'm headed up right after Christmas. I have become a real fan of soft hackle fishing.

JB and anyone else -

How important is color in the scheme of things? That is, with reading water, presentation, type of fly selected, color, rigging leader & tippet, where does color rank in importance? Do you find that all other things held constant, there is often/seldom/sometimes a big difference in results just based on fly color?

Thanks

[John Berry]

When matching flies to naturals it is size, shape and color. With color the least important and size the most important.