Fall Fly Fishing on the Green River

Our scenery and fishing road trip continued with the next stop, trying our luck fall fly fishing on the Green River in Wyoming.

We fished this section of the Green River back in July 2021 and I wrote about it in my Fly Fishing Southwest Wyoming post.

The road upstream for the final 20-plus miles to Green Lakes is very rough and slow, but the drive is worth it. We hoped the fall colors were around the lake, but camped for the night a short distance below it, hoping to catch the view of Squaretop at sunrise. To my surprise when I woke up that morning, the river was full of fog and made for a spectacular image.

After the sun came over the mountains, we drove up to the lower lake to take in the view and enjoy a cup of coffee.

Later, we started our drive downstream looking for a place to fish. The river was low, but we looked for a riffle to try our luck and found this likely spot.

Dancingtrout started with a tan Chernobyl Ant and I tied on a Thunder Thighs Hopper. A couple fish rose to her fly, but I couldn’t coax anything to mine.

I changed flies and tied on a size 16 Arrick’s Parachute Ant and hooked a fish on the first cast. Ants were the ticket for our remaining time on the water that afternoon.

We found eager, hungry trout and caught 4 or 5 fish each, with another half dozen or so fish rising and trying to eat our flies.

It was a great time catching these 10 – 12 inch Rainbows.

We camped downstream and the next day, I decided to pull our my Euro nymph rod and give it a try.

Here is a view of the river looking upstream…

…and the water downstream.

I worked through the run with those nymphs and landed 5 Whitefish. I felt a few other fish, which were probably Whitefish. Here is the first one.

Here are the nymphs I used…my Pheasant Tail Perdigon Nymph and Higa’s SOS.

On one drift, my flies paused and I set the hook. To my surprise, a large fish jumped out of the water several times, definitely NOT a Whitefish! I played it carefully as I was using 6X tippet for the nymphs to sink quickly.

After a good fight, I was lucky to land this beautiful Brown Trout that measured around 20 inches!

While in the net, we noticed how the fins were glowing in the sunlight and took a quick picture of a pectoral fin.

If you’d like to know where to fish on the Green River, just drive upstream and look for some cattle!

Enjoy…go fish!