White Mountains Fishing Report 05/04-05/05

Started on Earl Park Sunday morning. Saw some shop customers at the launch as well as a few risers. Headed to the backside of the lake and picked up a few small rainbows on midges about 8-10 feet under an indicator. The others on the lake were picking up some fish here and there on buggers and Simi Seal Leeches. Emerson showed up about an hour later and it was good to see and fish with him again. He hooked 4-5 fish pretty quickly. It slowed down for me for a bit, but then I saw a riser, kicked over to it and caught my best fish of the couple days I was up there, only 16″ inches though. Headed over to another spot on the lake and landed a half dozen 8-10″ fish with one decent fish at 15″.

After talking with Emerson a while at Earl Park and having some lunch, I decided to go check on the Greer Lakes. All these lakes are full and the water looks good. Was going to hit River, but the wind was howling. I put out on Bunch and caught 6 stockers in an hour, all 8-10″ bows. Set up a quick camp and decided to go check out the Dam at Sunrise to see if anything was happening. Emerson mentioned that there had been a couple reports of the bait guys catching some nicer rainbows at the dam. No official word out on if the lake had winter-killed so I figured it was a good way to kill an hour before the sun went down. Saw pods of tiny fish and an endless amount of risers at the dam. Hooked another 4 fish there, all small Apaches that looked to be recent stockers.

Monday I decided to check on River Reservoir with no wind as I heard there had been some nice Browns that came out recently. Spent an hour on the lake with not as much as a bump. I also saw about 100 cormorants(sp? Big ugly birds) in the trees there and only 1 fish rise. With all the great reports about Becker, I bagged it and headed down the road. Becker was good until the wind came up about 10ish. Caught 4 fish all good size and strong fighters. Got 2 on Simis and 2 on Zebras.

I think we are still a couple weeks away from Prime Time in the Whites. It was not as good as last year at this time, but much more water up there and just taking a while longer to warm up.