Flaming Gorge: Green River Fishing Report

The Green River just below the Flaming Gorge Dam is well worth a visit. I fished it for two days this weekend. I was going to fish for 3 days, but I developed some blisters on my feet that cut things short.

The Green River flows through a steep canyon of red rocks. The water is amazingly clear which makes it fairly easy to see the trout. A number of times I was able to watch a trout for several minutes as it would rise for bugs or cruise a hole.

There were a lot more people there than I would have liked. Every 10 minutes or so a boat of fishermen or rafters would come by. The "A" stretch of the river is about 8 miles long. I hiked in from Little Hole which is at the bottom of the "A" stretch. After about a mile and a half, I was by myself on the shore. The first mile or so seems to get a lot of traffic as there were fishermen everywhere. I have heard that going downriver from Little Hole into the "B" stretch or even further into the "C" stretch, will reduce both the numbers of fishermen and fish (though the fish are supposed to be much larger).

I actually saw a fish swim up to my fly (size 10 cicada), pause, and then finally go for it! That was my first catch and it was an awesome way to catch a fish. That fish ended up being a 14 or 15 inch brown trout. Since that fish was being fairly stubborn about coming to shore, I was able to turn on my camera and get it ready. I ended up with these pictures:




I also took a few pictures of the river and the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, the area is much browner than it used to be because of forest fires a few years ago. You can really see this in the 2nd picture down.








This last picture shows the Flaming Gorge just above the dam. The dam is just to the left of the picture.