Famed television angler Bill Dance was filming a TV show on the White River with his buddy Bruce Stanton and long-time guide and lodge owner Donald Cranor. The river was low, and the wind was blowing hard. But Cranor knows the White well and found a stretch of river holding oversize early-spawning brown trout.
Even on those cold, gray days, the White River can be full of life. The reason is right in its nickname: “The Trout Capital of the USA.” Winter is prime time for trout fishing here, and no matter how chilly or miserable the weather gets, the river’s big rainbow and brown trout are still on the move. If you can stand the cold, there’s fish to be caught on the White.
“It was three days after Christmas and the fishing was tough,” Cranor tells Wired2fish. “I’d been having good luck fishing with Booyah Flash Point jerkbaits. But that day I switched to natural river shiners stitched onto 2/0 hooks, fished with a drop sinker and 1/8-ounce weights…