A Hot Day Floating The Green

Oh boy, here we go!  It’s one of my most anticipated days of the year, the day we go on a float trip.  I only go on a float trip once a year (although I did canoe down the White River once or twice this summer, but that’s not quite the same), so I definitely look forward to it.  And I’ve caught some big fish on float trips before, like this big brown I caught last year on the Green.  So here’s to hopin’ we get into some nice fish today.

With an early start, we met our guide, Chris, at the shop.  After picking up a few flies, we began the haul towards Pinedale (and the Green River), barreling down the road with a Clackacraft in tow.  When we finally arrived at the put in, it was already getting warm out, and light cloud layer was disappearing quickly.  Maybe not optimal fishing conditions, but I’m sure things will fall into place.

We got out onto the water and within a few minutes my father was into a fish.  A whitefish, but it was a good start.

One of the things I like about floating the Green is the killer view of the Winds.

An amazingly craggy set of mountains and some beautiful looking water.  What’s not to like?!

We floated along for a while as the activity on the water picked up. I watched as my father caught one fish.  And another.  And a third.  All decently sized browns, but nothing huge.  The fish were to keying into a 14 grey parachute adams and would have nothing to do either my 18 grey parachute adams or a hopper pattern I had out there.  We switched out my smaller adams for the bigger one, and within minutes I was into a nice fish, maybe 13″.  From there on out we had a great day of fishing.

One of the nicer browns my father caught.

Some of the river flows along these cliffs.

Looks like the badlands.

One of my bigger browns for the day.

Yet another brown putting a good bend into my father’s 5wt as Chris nets the fish

A healthy Green river brown trout.

The fishing was great for a few hours and then slowed to a halt in the late afternoon.  It was a really hot day out though, probably at least in the 80°s.  As the day wore on and the winds picked up (too strong, casting in such winds was a serious pain in the ass!), it began to cool down a bit.  Accordingly, the fish began to get hungry again. We both caught more and more fish.  The fish didn’t want anything to do with our grey adams anymore, but were now keying into a yellow hopper pattern.  Man those fish love twitching hoppers!  The fishing continued to heat up until the very end.  The last few minutes of the float were a crazy few minutes for me, boating 3 nicer fish.

One of fish I caught right before the take out.

Well, we didn’t catch any monsters today (yup, alas no 22″er like last year), but all in all the fishing was great.  We did catch some decent 15-16″ers, and between my father and myself we must have boated at least 30 fish, maybe even more – I lost count .  Casting into the wind was a pain, and I’ve forgotten just how worn out you can get from standing out in the hot sun all day, so I’m pretty wiped out, but I couldn’t be happier with how the trip went.  Tomorrow we’re off to Goodwin Lake up in the Gros Ventre.  Woohoo, go Go GO!