It’s that time of year again!  With stable flows and excellent water conditions the bugs are popping and the fish are on the feed bag.  We have Grey Reef guide boats on the water daily and everyone is catching fish.  It’s a common myth with our fishery that you have to be on the bottom to get em’.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  During our daily baetis and midge hatches fish will slide to the inside and suspend in the water column to feed on the emerging insects.  Catching these feeding fish is as good as it gets, hard “takes” that frequently slide or dunk the indicator several feet, what else could you ask for?  This “mini rig” technique is a substantial part of our program this time of year as well as swinging soft hackles in riffles, when the opportunity arises.  Our standard rig right now is as follows:

Length: 3-5ft(indicator to spilt shot)

Weight: #4 shot-single B shot(depending on water velocity)

Patterns: PAL, pulsating emerger, GS mayhem, all-day may, Blake Jackson’s Macgruber, LAZY, jujubaetis.

We are also mixing in some excellent streamer days right now on the lower river(downstream of Gov. Bridge to Casper).  It seems that the best days have been those with some degree of overcast skies.  Most of our guides have been throwing a single rusty trombone, articulated goldie, and/or a smoke and mirrors from Dirty Water Fly Company.  With our flows currently at 2,000cfs it is best to rig these flies on a sink tip(airflo’s streamer max short) or a fast intermediate(airflow’s 40+ FI).  We are retrieving the fly at medium fast pace, varying the retrieve, pausing in-between strips.

If you have any questions feel free to give us a call or stop by the shop.

307-232-9128