Six-Gun
Member
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2013
- Messages
- 427
With an absurdly tough work month of May now in the rearview mirror, the wife agreed to sign the kitchen pass so I could go do some exploring on the Wyoming streams. I flew into Denver, CO, borrowed a truck from my in-laws and drove up to Douglas, Wyoming from their place. The goal was to see if the North Platte River would prove itself as a blue ribbon fishery, and also to get a taste of the more secluded small water offerings up in the mountains.
I was staying with a buddy who was out collecting trees for his bonsai trimming hobby. He ended up being a big help in picking out some small streams to fish in the high country. On the way up to the hotel, I gave the Laramie River a look, but extremely high flows and coffee-colored water made the river not worth fishing. That one will have to wait for another trip...
The real fun started early the following morning, when I drove drive out to Casper and met up with my guide from Wyoming Anglers. He was a 19 year-old named Austen, fresh into his first year of college, and a life-long Casper resident. He would take me on what started as a half-day float on the North Platte River. As I stated in my previous thread, I've never had very good luck on guided float trips out West, and was gun-shy about paying for a full day and ending up on little more than a long, unproductive boat ride. As it turned out, the fishing was so good that I asked to extend to a full-day very early in the trip, fully aware that my granola bars would have to serve as our streamside lunches. Austen made a on-water phone call to the company owner, Luke, who approved my request.
Despite extremely high flows (3x normal) and fast current, we forged to an incredible day. Austen did a tremendous job reading the fish and calling the tackle. We experimented with a 3-nymph rig and found the purple rock worm that we had as the middle fly to be so effective that we changed another hook over to it as well. We kept a small egg sucking leech on the top hook just in case the odd fish decided it wanted something else. The final catch count was 21 fish landed, with 2 being in the 20" class and two more about that size hooked and lost. To say that it was an excellent time would be selling it short. FINALLY, I had a decent float trip experience under my belt!
Austen prepping the boat for launch:
You can see from this picture taken immediately after launch that the water coming out from the dam was very high, covering the normal bank line well into the surrounding grass flat:
The tandem of purple rock worms, run under an indicator on a 9-foot leader, was the ticket all day long:
Given that one of the fish coughed this up when we landed him, it really wasn't shocking why the rock worm was...rockin':
The big fish of the day was this 20+ inch measured rainbow that made a long run for another drift boat and leaped just feet from its bow. That made for quite a visual and a big “wow!” from the boat’s guide:
Of course, no float trip is complete without a resting, bankside mule deer watching you fish:
Big props to Wyoming Anglers for their flexibility, and especially to Austen for doing such a great job and foregoing a normal lunch to keep me out on the water! It was definitely a trip I would take again in a heartbeat.
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The next day I decided to get back into my comfort zone and start exploring some more secluded water up high in the mountains. My buddy had spotted a beautiful creek while he was out collecting trees and told me that it looked worth fishing. I followed the tip and was not disappointed. The little stream held an incredible number of browns and rainbows, of which I caught so many that I eventually lost count somewhere well after 25.
The catch at least felt like it was evenly split between the species, with some holes turning up all rainbows, others all browns, and some a mix of both. I started the day on dries, catching a bunch, and then eventually switched to a 2-nymph rig. Everything worked well and these fish were eager to eat. Sizes ranged from fingerlings all the way up to some surprisingly large 14 - 16" fish. It was an awesome time and worth the hike in.
This is one of those streams that had it all, perfect flows, lots of structure, beautiful scenery and plenty of fish:
The biggest fish caught out of this stream was a nearly 16" rainbow that took a green and black emerger.
-------------------
The final day I fished turned Wyoming's free fishing day, which was a nice little money saver. It would be a half-day trip for me, as I had to get back to Denver and pack, and I spent it on yet another high mountain stream that my buddy spotted during his prior day's tree hunt. This one was even smaller and meandered through some state trust land near about an hour south of Douglas. It ended up being possibly the best brook trout stream I have ever fished, producing significantly larger brookies than I usually catch (and all on dries, of course).
Here are some of the many brookies pulled out of this little creek:
At one point, I stopped at a hole that was too brush-choked for anything but a bow-and-arrow cast and a very short drift. I had a hunch that something nice was in there, so I went for it. It ended up yielding the largest fish caught that day, and the biggest stream-run brookie I have ever landed: a fat, 12"-measured pig that I swore for the life of me had to be a brown trout when I first hooked him. It took an act of God to keep him from breaking off under several submerged branch tangles, but by some miracle he made it to the net. Finally, I had caught an eater-sized gemmie! ;-)
This was the hole he came out of:
One of the many Wyoming "residents" who visited streamside:
-------------
Overall, this was one of the best Western trips I have ever had. Waters big and small produced and the fish count was through the roof. I joined my in-laws back in Denver to see the annual “Chalk Fest” art festival the night that I returned. It seems that one of the many artists had already visualized this adventure the whole time I was away. :-D
I was staying with a buddy who was out collecting trees for his bonsai trimming hobby. He ended up being a big help in picking out some small streams to fish in the high country. On the way up to the hotel, I gave the Laramie River a look, but extremely high flows and coffee-colored water made the river not worth fishing. That one will have to wait for another trip...
The real fun started early the following morning, when I drove drive out to Casper and met up with my guide from Wyoming Anglers. He was a 19 year-old named Austen, fresh into his first year of college, and a life-long Casper resident. He would take me on what started as a half-day float on the North Platte River. As I stated in my previous thread, I've never had very good luck on guided float trips out West, and was gun-shy about paying for a full day and ending up on little more than a long, unproductive boat ride. As it turned out, the fishing was so good that I asked to extend to a full-day very early in the trip, fully aware that my granola bars would have to serve as our streamside lunches. Austen made a on-water phone call to the company owner, Luke, who approved my request.
Despite extremely high flows (3x normal) and fast current, we forged to an incredible day. Austen did a tremendous job reading the fish and calling the tackle. We experimented with a 3-nymph rig and found the purple rock worm that we had as the middle fly to be so effective that we changed another hook over to it as well. We kept a small egg sucking leech on the top hook just in case the odd fish decided it wanted something else. The final catch count was 21 fish landed, with 2 being in the 20" class and two more about that size hooked and lost. To say that it was an excellent time would be selling it short. FINALLY, I had a decent float trip experience under my belt!
Austen prepping the boat for launch:
You can see from this picture taken immediately after launch that the water coming out from the dam was very high, covering the normal bank line well into the surrounding grass flat:
The tandem of purple rock worms, run under an indicator on a 9-foot leader, was the ticket all day long:
Given that one of the fish coughed this up when we landed him, it really wasn't shocking why the rock worm was...rockin':
The big fish of the day was this 20+ inch measured rainbow that made a long run for another drift boat and leaped just feet from its bow. That made for quite a visual and a big “wow!” from the boat’s guide:
Of course, no float trip is complete without a resting, bankside mule deer watching you fish:
Big props to Wyoming Anglers for their flexibility, and especially to Austen for doing such a great job and foregoing a normal lunch to keep me out on the water! It was definitely a trip I would take again in a heartbeat.
------------------------
The next day I decided to get back into my comfort zone and start exploring some more secluded water up high in the mountains. My buddy had spotted a beautiful creek while he was out collecting trees and told me that it looked worth fishing. I followed the tip and was not disappointed. The little stream held an incredible number of browns and rainbows, of which I caught so many that I eventually lost count somewhere well after 25.
The catch at least felt like it was evenly split between the species, with some holes turning up all rainbows, others all browns, and some a mix of both. I started the day on dries, catching a bunch, and then eventually switched to a 2-nymph rig. Everything worked well and these fish were eager to eat. Sizes ranged from fingerlings all the way up to some surprisingly large 14 - 16" fish. It was an awesome time and worth the hike in.
This is one of those streams that had it all, perfect flows, lots of structure, beautiful scenery and plenty of fish:
The biggest fish caught out of this stream was a nearly 16" rainbow that took a green and black emerger.
-------------------
The final day I fished turned Wyoming's free fishing day, which was a nice little money saver. It would be a half-day trip for me, as I had to get back to Denver and pack, and I spent it on yet another high mountain stream that my buddy spotted during his prior day's tree hunt. This one was even smaller and meandered through some state trust land near about an hour south of Douglas. It ended up being possibly the best brook trout stream I have ever fished, producing significantly larger brookies than I usually catch (and all on dries, of course).
Here are some of the many brookies pulled out of this little creek:
At one point, I stopped at a hole that was too brush-choked for anything but a bow-and-arrow cast and a very short drift. I had a hunch that something nice was in there, so I went for it. It ended up yielding the largest fish caught that day, and the biggest stream-run brookie I have ever landed: a fat, 12"-measured pig that I swore for the life of me had to be a brown trout when I first hooked him. It took an act of God to keep him from breaking off under several submerged branch tangles, but by some miracle he made it to the net. Finally, I had caught an eater-sized gemmie! ;-)
This was the hole he came out of:
One of the many Wyoming "residents" who visited streamside:
-------------
Overall, this was one of the best Western trips I have ever had. Waters big and small produced and the fish count was through the roof. I joined my in-laws back in Denver to see the annual “Chalk Fest” art festival the night that I returned. It seems that one of the many artists had already visualized this adventure the whole time I was away. :-D
