The joy of whitefishing in the rain

You may have heard it last summer or even said it yourself.

"Oh, crap, it's a whitefish."

But you didn't hear that from me last week.

On a cloudy day, I rigged my 5-weight rod with a dropper nymph set-up, found an old thingamabobber and headed for the Flathead River for a couple hours of whitefishing. Rather than trout fishing and getting bugged by mountain whitefish, I was whitefishing, hoping to get bugged by trout. Didn't happen, but I sure caught a bunch of whities.

Six feet below the "strike indicator," I fished a size-16 Prince Nymph off the tag of a blood knot. A size-16 red Copper John completed the rig about a foot below the blood knot. Halfway between the flies, I tied a surgeon's knot to prevent two BB shot from sliding down the tippet.

Some fly fishers tie the terminal line and fly off the bend of the top fly, but I used the tag of the blood knot to allow more action as the fly drifted downstream.

Fishing method was pretty simple. Just cast the bobber along the slow side of seams and into shallow water adjacent to faster, deeper water. Mend to keep the fly line upstream from the bobber.

Seemed like the harder it rained, the more times the indicator dove upstream. A few rod-benders between 13 and 14 inches made it easier to ignore the downpour.

Most of the whities were just shy of a foot long. According to C.J.D. Brown's Fishes of Montana, mountain whitefish reach about 8 inches in length their second year, 11 inches the third, 13 inches the fourth and 14 inches their fifth year. State record for Prosopium williamsoni is 5 pounds, 11 ounces from Hauser Reservoir.

I didn't keep any whities (I have eaten them and they are as tasty as trout), but I sure had fun in the rain.