Seeing Green

I took my annual pilgrimage to the Green River.  This year I was joined by a pair of brothers, Josh and Tyler and Brett and Jake.  I couldn't have asked for better guys to spend a day chasing trout.  I will let the pictures do most of the talking.  The fish are healthy.  We didn't catch anything huge, just a lot of really healthy fish.  The was one that I spotted while stalking that was HUGE but it wouldn't move for anything I threw at it.  Eventually I got tired and tried to wade out and poke it with my rod.  It still didn't move.  So I took off my backpack and went deeper and was able to slide this massive brown out that had probably been dead for at least a few days.  I'm not sure how long it takes a dead fish to start decomposing?  But this is the type of fish that fishermen dream about at night!  Too bad it was caught with my foot and not my fly, and was dead before contact and didn't give me a great fight.  Still very cool to see!  You can't complain about catching dozens of fish in t-shirt weather at the end of November.

Here is the big boy, Brett posed with him for the picture.  The rest of the pictures show it was a great day with A LOT of fish caught!

Green River Glory Days

Anyone that is a flyfisherman knows about and has probably even fished Utah's famed Green River.  You talk to old timers and they talk in reverent tones of days of yesteryear where the fish were both healthy and plentiful.  It seems these days that you can catch a lot of fish but many were skinny and at some level stunted.  Of course there were the few fish here and there that were true trophies, but the health of the fishery seemed to be on the decline the last decade.

We took a trip out this fall and the fishing was nothing short of epic.  The sheer numbers of fish caught alone would be something to write about, but what was most impressive was the health of virtually every fish that was caught.  We didn't catch any huge fish.  There were some really nice fish along the way, but nothing huge.  But every fish had girth and health that you are not accustomed to these days on the Green River.  The first day was literally one of the 2-3 best days fishing I've ever had in my life. And it certainly was the best day ever on the Green.  I won't comment too much about the details, I'll let this post be very picture heavy.  But it was awesome to be with my brothers, brother-in-law, nephew (first time at the Green...got totally spoiled!), and great friends for what was truly an epic trip.