Superbowl Sunday on the Reef.

The day was indeed warm for early February - the thermometer bumping 50F.  It was breezy all day with an occasional real gust, but never so bad that you felt like it was just crazy to be on the water.   I got there at 10:30 and fished until 4:30.   Six hours of fishing and five of driving.  My rule for a successful day trip (which does not always obtain)  is that there should be more fishing than driving.

The last two times I've fished the reef I've done well with a green leech pattern followed with a midge dropper.  Of course I started with that rig and before long I'd hooked up with a decent rainbow.  Somehow hooking and landing that first fish is always a relief, it's a kind of confirmation, and a day seems to flow more seamlessly after that.

The river is very low (500 cfs) and so, with a bit of boldness, I was able to wade our to a spot I've never made it to before.  From the far side of the dam I was able to follow a rocky edge out to a spot where I was almost directly downstream from the left edge of the dam.  The position was a bit precarious and the flow was a bit stronger and the water a bit deeper out there than I like it in such cold water - but I was able to reach a lot of fish from there. The 11 foot five weight switch rod is just about perfect for this fishing. I can cast it significantly farther than I can a 9' eight weight and certainly far further than I can cast a 9 foot 5 weight.  Once the fly is on the water, the long rod provides amazing line control.  I cast it single handed style all day.  After using an 11 footer, a 9 foot rod feels like a tiny wand.  And it does very nicely in the wind - somehow that extra length allows me to really punch a line into the wind.  It was Superbowl Sunday  and by 2 PM I was the only on the river besides one other fellow who showed up and fished for about twenty minutes before leaving. I spent as much time as I could fishing that spot before I was too cold and needed to warm up in the truck. More than once I'd noticed two larger fish sporadically but actively feeding in shallower water on either side of the main flow.

Although I've seen it many times, there is always something truly astounding about seeing the mottled back of a trout as it slowly emerges from the surface of the water, fin standing high, the fish slowly arcing up and then back down. Not apparently in a hurry at all.  The sun was just right to expose a brightly colored flank just before the fish slipped seamlessly back into the water - quietly disappearing as if it had never been there.

Around 1 PM I  recharged in the truck in full gear with heater running full blast to warm my icy feet. I downed a surprisingly good bacon and egg burrito from Sloane's.  With warm feet and a full stomach I waded back out to my precarious perch on the edge of the main current with the intention of catching those two larger fish.  They were still feeding.  They were undoubtedly smutting; exclusively feeding on midges. I knew that - but my recent successes with the leech pattern paired with conversation in local fly shops had me wanting to take them with anything but a midge.

The loneliness of manning a fly shop counter mid-winter has these guides anxious for conversation, but in those conversations I have often found them disdainful of (my) small fly tactics. In the coarser shop, the recommendation for the reef in winter is  "bacon and eggs" i.e. a San Juan worm with an egg pattern for a dropper.  I'd talked to Trent at the reef fly shop briefly the last time I was up and told him about my (surprising to me) success with a green leech pattern, his response was something to the effect that - "Yes, at this time of year they like something chunky to bite on."  In general, except perhaps on the San Juan, fly shops are generally loath to recommend small flies - or if they do, they are at the bottom of the recommendation list.  Most people don't want to fish a size 24 fly, and even less do they care to tie one on. And besides, most of the guides who man the counters  fish from drift boats where a larger fly might actually do better on average. Tiny flies are most successful when paired with a drag free drift and the occasional induced movement done just so - not always easily accomplished from a moving boat.  A bigger fly is certainly easier to tie on and a single large fly is far less prone to tangle in the wind. As a guide this is important.   At the reef they mostly push an inch long red "rock worm" and perhaps a squirrel strip streamer and an egg.  Of course these patterns catch fish, but not a trout selectively feeding on small midges.

Anyway, I tried almost everything before I tied on what I knew those bigger fish were taking. This was cold work - constantly re-rigging in thigh deep faster water.  Neither of those fish would be fooled by anything larger - at least not by me. I already knew the green mohair leech was of no interest.  Forget a black woolly bugger. I have a beautiful bead head caddis pupae pattern with a pale yellow translucent body.  It was of no interest.  Valadi's worm was unanimously rejected. A small bright red midge larva did not interest them at all, and neither did a scud pattern tied with CDC legs. I tried swinging a white marabou streamer through the water near them and got nothing.  This last failure surprised me because it has proved so effective in the past - even sometimes on smutting trout. 

It was a classic smutting trout situation - they were uninterested in anything but the midges they were keyed on and I knew it the whole time.  Those fish below the dam are hit very hard all year and with the water so low they are  very exposed.  Eventually, feet nearly frozen, I tied on what I knew they wanted. I managed to hook them both on a size 24  foam wing RS2.  (To be fair - I just now see this very fly is near the bottom of the list of recommended flies on the Reef fly shop pages.) In the water, that tiny white dot wing on the RS2 is astoundingly visible.  The larger of the two was feeding in a shallow spot closer to the middle of the river. It was a long cast and harder to get a good drift out there. I only managed to get him to take my fly once - had him on for a second and that put him down for the rest of my day.  I did not see him again. I did managed to the land the other fish after the subtlest take you could ever imagine.  That was very satisfying. It was a rainbow that I will generously say was 18" in length. 

The RS2 really turned out to be the fly of the day - fished upstream or across, dead drift with a occasional twitch to induce the take. This is a variant of the good old Leisenring lift - or something like it - on a fly fished a long way out under a thing-a-ma-bobber. I did not keep count but I believe I hooked and landed a dozen fish and most of those took the RS2.  Interestingly I had a small black bodied silver beadhead midge above the RS2 and it hooked only one fish - an 8" rainbow.  All but one of the fish I caught were rainbows and the one brown was snagged in the belly on a drift through a hole that was obviously holding him and others.

Green River Trip

The Green River, just across the Utah border and below the Flaming Gorge dam, is reputed to have more fish per mile than any other stream in North America. I see numbers as high as 15,000 "catchable" trout per mile for the seven or eight miles of river below the dam. The average sizes are 14 - 18 inches and there are browns, rainbows and less commonly, cutthroat trout. Browns and rainbows dominate with the brown trout perhaps holding a slight majority over rainbows. Most of the fish so clearly visible from the bank are browns; rainbows are still holding in the deeper runs in this pre-spawn period.

Garrett and I fished on Thursday and Friday. It's a bit less that four hours drive from Laramie and we were on the river at 11 having left town just before 7AM. Thursday we fished the upper section just below the dam. The trail down to the river from the upper parking lot is rather spectacular here. With a flow of around 750 cfs the river is wadeable and it is just barely possible for me to cross at certain points. The photo above shows a drift boat passing by as we walked down the trail to the river. We wade fish from the bank and I have never hired a guide. For me, figuring out the fishing is what it is about.

We hooked up with small midge patterns (size 22 gray bodied RS2's and WD40's were hot) and, although we were hoping for a hatch of blue winged olives (Baetis), we saw none. As the day warmed (to maybe around 55°F) the midge hatch came on stronger and some fish started rising so I switched to a dry fly. A size 22 thread midge with a wrap of hackle, no wings or tails, gray body. I did catch one nice brown on the dry fly and hooked up with two more that I did not land on the tiny drys. The water in the Green is just crystal clear and sight fishing is the norm. In almost any good spot you may see ten or more fish lined up along the bank. To sight fish to them you move into position to avoid unnatural drag on the fly from intervening currents and to get the best drift, and cast hoping not to put the fish down. If you have the wrong fly, it will not work. All of these fish have been caught many times each and are highly selective feeders. I caught eight to ten fish all between 13" - 16" and Garrett may have caught twice as many. Garrett fished subsurface midge patterns and caught more fish than I did but I do love to watch a trout rise and take a dry. He was fishing the edges of the deeper and faster runs and hooked up with more rainbows than browns. I concentrated on slower shallower water sight fishing to mostly brown trout. Reflecting on the days fishing I realized that the Baetis hatch was more likely further downstream where the icy water had a chance to warm a bit.

We spent the night in an overpriced room at the Flaming Gorge Resort (discounted winter rates) and ate dinner at the restaurant there sharing a table with a couple of fly fishermen from California. They'd fished the Provo before coming up to the Green and ran into heavy Baetis hatches there. Frank is the flyfishing guy at the Western Sport Shop in San Rafael. It is one of the last great mom and pop outdoor stores in the country with a nice selection of rifles, shotguns, top quality fishing equipment and a really nice selection of new, used and rare sporting books.


Friday morning we drove down to Little Hole parking lot which is seven miles downstream from the dam. Later in the season, this parking lot can get full but there were only three other cars there when we arrived around 9:30 or so. We walked past fish rising in the long flats up to where there is a bit of broken water. We started hooking up on the same gray bodied RS2's and WD40's. Garrett fished that same rig all day long and I believe he must have caught more fish than anyone else on the river that day. He must have caught 30 trout the largest being about 19" or 20" and most being 14" - 16". I caught only a third as many but concentrated on fishing the dry fly. It was a warmer day with temperatures as high as 60°F, though it chilled down when the clouds blocked the sun. Being Friday, there were a lot more fisherman out on the river.

Around 2PM I saw two Blue Winged Olives hatch and the fish got very active. I believe they were taking Baetis nymphs. Garrett was fishing a deeper run below a wide riffle and was catching fish one after another, still fishing his underwater rig with a pair of grey bodied midge imitations. Fishermen walking upstream along the trail on the east bank would stop and watch him. Throughout the day we only rarely saw other fishermen into a fish so his productivity was rather astounding. I finally gave up on the drys after pricking and missing a beautiful rainbow who came up for my crippled Blue Winged Olive pattern in a perfect porpoising rise.

There's nothing like success. I switched to Garrett's rig and started hooking up right away. Missed landing two fish and then landed a nice rainbow. We were near waist deep in the middle of the river and with both of us hooking up we started to attract other fishermen to the run with us. By now it was around 4PM and a second flotilla of drift boats was coming through so it was a socially active scene. I hooked to another rainbow and after a rather extended fight, this one swam between my legs and was holding up under a shelf on a large rock. Rod in one hand and net in the other he swam up and went back between my legs again and against the submerged rock. Trying to move away from the rock I stumbled and gently rolled backwards as I netted the trout. The water temperature was around 40°F. It flowed down over the back of my waders and the icy cold water running down my legs was rather stunning. I released the trout and waded out laughing and cursing. I haven't fallen in a river while fishing for about 14 years. Last time was mid-winter while steelhead fishing on the Salmon River in upstate NY fishing with Peter McDonald. Garrett and I walked back to the truck and dry clothes which were a bit less than a mile downstream It would have been just fine, but I did manage to briefly dunk my camera which now does not work.