Well there is no doubt that summer has arrived. Temperatures this week in Jackson have been pushing 90 with LOTS of sunshine. I’ve been spending a lot of days down on the Green river, introducing folks to the brown and rainbow trout that reside there. We been fooling fish with dries (yellow sallies, stoneflies, big attractors) and nymphs. Each day it seems that more and more fish are looking up and rising to the many bugs that are floating by. Additionally, smaller streams are fishing well with dries. Snake river flows coming out of Jackson lake dam are about to be cut back to summer levels, meaning that fishing is about to get GOOD. The Wind river over in Dubois is also coming down and I’m looking forward to fishing some folks over there in the coming months.

Two days ago I had the pleasure of taking Devin and Charlyn from Utah, fishing on the Green. Charlyn, despite being 7 month pregnant, put on a clinic, catching numerous trout, including a really nice rainbow! Devin held his own, catching quite a few browns and whitefish (we deemed him the whitefish king, which I think he secretly liked). All in all a nice day spent with good folks. See you on the water….

I had the pleasure today of taking Drew from South
Carolina
fishing. It was his first time handling a fly rod on a western
trout
stream and he did a great job! As some of you may know,
nymphing without an indicator ain’t easy. It takes patience and
concentration to get a good drift and detect the subtle takes
under the water. Drew was a master; keeping a tight line and
hooking up numerous times, allowing him to see some native
Wyoming fish up close and personal!

Drew hooking up….

The result; Drew’s first Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat
Trout!

Yesterday was a great day for all of us. Jon and Jashelle
joined me for a fun day of fishing on the Green river. We knew
that conditions can vary this time year, but headed south in
hopes that the steady river flows would hold for us. It wasn’t
until we crossed the Warren Bridge that we knew we made the
right decision. The Green looked great! Jon was a great
fisherman and his lady, Jashelle caught on quickly. Both
managed to fool a variety of fish (browns, rainbows, cutthroat
and whitefish) during our day. The highlight came when Jon
hooked this gorgeous rainbow and brought it to the boat (after a
spectacular jumping show)! Nice work guys!

Jamie and I ended up getting out with our friend and Dubois, WY resident, Leon Sanderson on Monday. We couldn’t have asked for better weather! Despite Jamie’s determination to fish a dry fly, she listened to Leon and switched to a double nymph setup. After hooking several fish out of the first run, we knew we were in for a great day of Wyoming fishing! We all caught fish- browns, rainbows, cutts and whitefish and even managed to find a few pieces of petrified wood. We celebrated the day by stopping in at the Rustic for cold beers.

Every fishing van needs a Hula girl…

Leon helping Jamie to bring in a trout

Leon and Jamie celebrating a fine day on the water!

I just had the pleasure of spending five days fishing with
my friend and long time fishing buddy, Kurt. Kurt tries to
make it out to Jackson once a year, and once again managed
to sneak in for a few days on the water. We split time
between Dubois and Jackson, finding fish in both areas. The
best fish of the trip came from the New Fork River, which we
floated a day before flows skyrocketed and fishing became
lousy. Another day spent drifting the Snake yielded several
cutthroat and whitefish, but was tough due to the rising water
levels and silt. Never the less, we had a great time catching
up and I enjoyed introducing Kurt to some new waters.

Fishing around here has changed considerably over the
past few days. Temperatures in the valley reached the high
70’s and the sunshine really got the snow melting. While this
most likely means the end of spring fishing, I suspect that
we’ll get an early jump on things around here this summer.
Hopefully local waters will be fishing well by the end of June!
Until then it’s time to finish tying flies and get the yard work
done while there’s still time. Hope everyone is well.