The Green River Below Flaming Gorge

[JBH III]

I am going to Utah in august for a two day overnight float trip with my dad. We are fishing the green river below flaming gorge. I have not fished in Utah, and I was wondering if anybody fished out there.

[longbearded1]

Didn't fish there but did the Flaming Gorge Dam tour about four years ago. At the bottom of the dam there must have been 3000 trout of various sizes, some huge. The guide said the 7 miles below the dam were fabulous trout waters. Know this doesn't help but it stirred that image of all those fish sitting in that beautiful water. They had trout food in machines like bubble gum machines that you could buy to feed the fish. Looked like piranha when you tossed it in the water.

[2thDoc]

ergo, i would suggest you tie a fly the size of a pencil eraser...brown.

[JABIII]

JBH, I have fished that stretch and it is awesome. There are something like 50,000 trout per mile and you will see some MONSTERS.

Nymphing is the best way to catch fish on the Green. Dry fly fishing is tough. I caught a few on drys but nymphs were the ticket.

While we were camped out under a full moon one night I heard fish breaking on the surface. I asked about trying them in the moonlight on the big river and the westerners just laughed at me. I listened to fish break for about 30 minutes until I couldn't take it any more. Being a good old Southern boy I left the camp and headed for the river as the boys I had with me from Jackson Hole sniggered about my redneck fishing in the dark.

I put on a pearl zonker and caught a 26" brown on the first cast. In half an hour I landed 4 fish over 20". They were flat up on that moon. One of the others finally came to see what the commotion was all about as I hauled in another big brown trout. He fled back to the camp for all the others and their rods. By the time they had their shit together and got in a cast, the water was rising 2 inches per minute. They had opened up the turbines at Flaming Gorge and those bastages didn't catch a damn thing! [img]graemlins/coolio.gif[/img]

You will need plenty of BIG lures like double bunnies, zonkers, etc. While floating unwadeable sections we chunked and stripped those huge lures and caught some really nice fish and saw a helluva lot more than we caught. Again, nymphing was the only way to really catch alot of fish.

A trick I learned on the Green was to tie a nymph to your calf and let it stream out a foot or so as you fish. Trout will follow the sediment stream you make when standing and fishing and bite the nymph, scaring the hell out of you.

Also be prepared for some sporty whitewater. There is one set of rapids you will never forget where Red something Creek comes in. While we were scouting the rapid a local guide came up and offered to take my driftboat down for us. He showed us the remains of several other boats where people had been smoked and we readily agreed to let him drive....

Good luck and if you have some moon and hear a fish break at night, get out there!

[JBH III]

Thanks JAB. I can't wait to get out there. I hope I have as good a luck as you seem to. Hopefully I will have some pics to post when I get back.

[Chap]

Damn JAB, that sounds like an awesome trip. I haven't fished that river yet. Cool story.

[BANSnake]

Floated and waded the Green below Flaming Gorge a couple times back in the late 90's and caught some monster browns on top with chernobyl ants and sicadas(?), and we were fortunate to have some decent hatches where you could catch 'em on top but nymphing is definitely the way to go.

JAB many a fish has been caught by doing the old San Juan Shuffle...something to see!