Despite heavy smoke from nearby fires, we had a great time fishing the white river on a overnight hike. We drove up to the white river falls on about ten miles of potted dirt road and parked at the trailhead. Of note, you need a USFS pass to park here. From the falls there are two trails which follow the white river. We decided to take the bridge across the falls to the trail which follows the west bank of the river.

About two miles in, we crossed over deer creek via a pretty cool bridge made of 30' timber. There was a nice clearing on the other side so we decided to set up camp for the night and try our luck at some dinner. We walked down deer creek to where it joins the white river and fished about 1/4 mile upstream in a beaver dam which was filled with 6" ers with dry parachute adams flies. Though we didnt catch anything big enough to eat for dinner, we at least found our starting point for the next day.

Motivated by an empty stomach we set out at about 9 am after packing up camp. By 10, we had found a good fishing hole that was 5" deep about 200 yards upstream from the beaver dam. We started with the parachute adams flies with no luck. Then i switched to a copper colored wet fly that I picked up at a local grocery store which looked a lot like a pheasant tail but had lots of green/copper fuzz on it. We pulled out three keeper wild rainbows ranging from 8"-11" from the pond whose stomachs were packed with gnats and small green colored bugs before we make the hike for the car.

North of Deer creek, the white river is full of deep pockets which gave the impression of being full of rainbows, but we only seemed to get bites in the one hole we found, though for the most part we were using dries. Recommend using wets or nymphs to pull your limit for the day in a hurry. Though we had to work for our fish, the beauty of the mountains coupled with the experience of fishing a river that doesnt get much action really made the trip worth while.

Also, lots of bear sign and traffic along the shoreline... bring a big stick or a 357 with ya.

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