Fishing the Green!

I fished the Green River a couple weeks ago with friends Darren and Brad (they just happen to be guides for Western Rivers, which is an added bonus). I headed out Friday and made sure I stopped in Evanston to load up the Subaru with tasty contraband. Black Butte Porter $9.99 for a 12-pack!! Gotta love Wyoming.

Spent the evening drinking beer with the guys, talking fishing, and getting stoked for the following day when we'd hit the river. Darren showed me how to tie his version of a Quiggly Cripple and being new to tying, I tried to repeat his pattern. I forgot the dubbing so it turned into the HB's version of Darren's version of a Quiggly Cripple. Whew! Hey- who needs dubbing?! HA.

We launched Darren's drift boat on the A section. Never having caught a fish on a fly I've tied, I started the day with the Crippled HB. First cast, fish on! Nice little rainbow. Pretty stoked catching a fish with something I tied! Still think it might have been a fluke, but I'll take it!

Fish were rising consistently for the first hour or so (I caught two including my rainbow), but then the downpour arrived. Thank goodness for my new waterproof wading jacket over multiple layers of fleece. It rained, no poured, for pretty much the rest of the day. No more rising fish, so we switched to throwing streamers. However, not being good at streamers and not wanting to take someone's ear off, I opted to row for a bit, and then transitioned to the back of the boat where I tried choking down ice cold beer. You know it's cold when it's too cold to drink beer!

Darren and Brad caught some nice fish throughout the afternoon until Darren broke both the six and seven weights. (Note to self: don't let Darren use rod). One of the day's highlights was hearing boulders tumble down the cliffs and echo off the canyon walls. Kind of freaky, but really cool.

As soon as we reached the takeout and loaded up the boat, it began dumping! Snow was sticking to the road in a matter of minutes and I was so glad I wasn't heading back to SLC that night. Sunday morning was a beautiful bluebird day (why wasn't it like this when we fished??), but I was headed home. Booooooo!

Thoughts of big fish and beautiful canyons motivate me to plan another trip soon.