A year to remember that's for sure, for the most part we experienced high water for both the White and Norfork rivers. We missed seeing the great caddis hatches, the may fly hatches and for many the joys of wade fishing the shoals and riffles, which would hold countless trout eager to take a nymph a dry, streamer or soft hackle.

Aside from that high water doe's provide many benefits for the fish. It increases the volume of water and that in turn increases that habitat for the food base, which in turn also promotes greater growth for the fish.

High water also reduced angler activity, and in turn long term survival was greater for the fish, the consequence is that this year we have seen a definite increase in the overall average size of the trout, particularly Brown trout. In fact this year has been unreal with the numbers of Browns in excess of 18 to 25 ins, with the two best specimens going at 14 and 12 lb.

High water l realize is not everybody's choice, in many ways if you wish to fish with the fly rod it can be very challenging, deep fast water demanded special rigs, long leaders and added weight for one, when dead drift nymph fishing or with other flies that drew the attention of the fish.

Streamer fishing along the shorelines and around mid water structure often produced trophy trout.

Boat safety when drifting always a serious concern when navigating water that is moving at 10 to 12 miles per hour. We were indeed fortunate this year not to suffer loss of life on the rivers given the number of boats that were sunk, some of which still remain at the river bed.

The consistent levels of high water not to mention the spring floods has resulted in a massive tonnage of sand, silt, rock and gravel being scoured from the shorelines and the mid water islands, Crooked creek, Buffalo river and the many small creeks that flow into the White river introduced same as the torrents of flood water gushed into the main river basin carrying with it sedimentation that has now deposited within the river basin.

This past week lower water levels are taking place as the lake levels have more or less reached pool levels. My last three days guiding have seen me fishing some of the lower sections of the river, l know for sure that when we see zero generation and days of low water it will be a new learning experience to figure out the new navigational routes up and downstream, in many cases also around the trees and large limbs that are now present in the river basin.

And for the fish new habitat is the result of these changes, that also needs to be figured out, which one of the new structures in the river will be home to that trophy Brown, for you can be sure some of them will.

The faster riffles will provide home for the Rainbow trout that by and large favor this kind of habitat. Its true that a river never ceases to move, it changes as time passes.

As l write generations for the White are averaging with 3 gates open and for the Norfork two, water temps are still in the mid 50s, which will start to reduce before too long as the stratified levels in the lake systems reduce the overall temperature of the lake levels to a mean average of lower temps in the low to high 40s.

The lower levels will now enable many of the Brown trout that have as yet not been able to spawn to locate and dig redds where they find shallower zones with good clean gravel, and hopefully zones that when generation is shut down will not leave those zones dry.

Winter fly fishing.

As a rule it is at this time that much of the food base becomes dormant, the crawdads bury up in the mud banks, invertebrate food sources are way less active, on the plus side chironomids hatches will continue, small species of mayfly will be present such as BWO and baetis, both of which will provide for at times some great emerger and dry fly fishing.

Other than that the name of the game for the best part will be to dead drift nymphs and crustaceans. In real terms a nymph is not a scud or a sowbug, they are crustaceans, nymphs are the aquatic stage of mayfly and stonefly, while larva are those of the caddis fly. Midge larva also called bloodworm and then pupa before the winged insect emerges for chironomids.

For the most part when wade fishing during the winter periods l will fish various patterns that represent the midge pupa and bloodworm. Such fly patterns as Prism and Whitetail pupa in size from 12 to 18, when fishing a midge hatch and surface feeding fish then go to one of the very small imitations such as various zebra and WD40, micro soft hackles from size 18 to 22 will often be deadly fished dead drift or for that matter at depth when a small number shot is added to get the fly down, have no fear the fish will see them.

When we see days of warm conditions expect the fish to become more active, both streamers wetfly and soft hackles fished in the likely zones will often produce fish, bear in mind that as a rule when we see low water temps fish are less likely to chase.

One of my favorite ploys is to use a combination of a size 14 Prism midge 18 ins above that a soft hackles fished dead drift, a black and silver spider here is a great choice, with or without a indicator, in most cases l do prefer to fish this techniques high stick style without a indicator, as a rule with 5x tippet sections.

Drift fishing over the deeper water zones, Here choices will be to use Dynamite and San Juan worms, eggs and at times flies that contain high vis color, particularly when days are overcast and no sun penetrates the water column. Often at such times fishing may be slow and feeding activity will be up and down through the day,often as not mid afternoons can be the most productive times to fish.

Often as not fishing pressure is moderate, many times you will have the water to yourself, all be it there will be cold windy days that are not so much fun, but hey that's fishing. You can always make a little stream side fire to warm you self, there is plenty of fire wood to be found close at hand.

Guess l would like to wind up my reports for 2008 with a few pictures of some of the fine fish we have caught this year

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and Happy New Year.