The Wyoming Game and Fish has been recording hook scaring when they do population surveys. This was not part of their program before instituting the allowance of pegged beads in 2014. It was obvious that this would be an unintended consequence of hooking fish outside of the mouth so we nudged this to be included in their information collection. Their findings, disturbing but expected, prompted action ten years later and they have sent a survey to folks who have purchased fishing licenses that asks questions regarding angler practices between Seminoe Reservoir and Government Bridge. Pegged beads (defined as lures by the Wyoming Game and Fish and considered a snagging apparatus by us), fishing barbless or barbed and number of flies per rig.

Hook damage has become pervasive at Miracle Mile and Grey Reef and the Wyoming Game and Fish are acutely aware. I’ll share our perspective on each issue and it might surprise you since we are an outfitter that utilizes these fisheries. It would suggest, by most measures of the tone of the angling community, that we would want every tool at our disposal to rape and pillage the resource…but this is not the case.

Pegged Beads Within the survey there are questions regarding fly only fishing from Grey Reef to Government Bridge. Since pegged beads are defined as lures, pegging rigs would be disallowed. We are strongly in favor of this provision. We do not engage in the practice of pegging beads or pegging other materials that are not legal per Wyoming Game and Fish definitions. Our position is that pegging is illegal snagging as defined in the WY G&F regs “attempting to take a fish in a manner that the fish does not take the hook voluntarily in its mouth”. We feel it is unsportsmanlike, we feel it is an irresponsible way for folks to be instructed to enter fly fishing, disappointing that industry professionals employ it and we feel it is the cause of most of the hook scaring. Proponents of pegging often repeat “when done correctly, the hook pins the fish in the corner of the mouth”.  The problem with that logic is that on a healthy trout, there is a flap of cartilage attached to the face by very soft tissue called the Maxillary Process. The Maxillary Process extends over the corner of the mouth. Once a hook (barbed or not) embeds into that portion of their face and the angler sets the hook, the fish runs etc there is a lot of pressure put on this pretty delicate body part. The cartilage in the maxillary process often breaks and/or the tissue attaching the Maxillary Process rips, separating the Maxillary Process from their face, upper lip, jaw, head…whatever. This is now a permanently disfigured trout. Pegging is designed to do this while fishing a fly isn’t.

Barbs We made, within our organization, barbless a requirement about 25 years ago. We are strongly in favor of mandatory barbless fly fishing. They aren’t necessary for angling “success” and they are the cause of plenty of damage to the trout and painful for anglers. You will notice that we often use the hashtag #pinchyourbarbs in our social media posts…this is a mantra we live by. It’s easy and it’s as fair as we can get in catch-and-release fly fishing.

2 Flies per Rig  Current regulations allow 3 hooks/flies per rig. Our organization mandates 2 flies per rig. We are well aware that our crew will tether 3 flies on a rig. I’ve done it plenty as have all the guides operating at Grey Reef, Miracle Mile (and the Big Horn River although it isn’t included in this survey). It is excessive, borderline unfair and completely unnecessary. We are in favor of a 2 fly/rig maximum.

Spawning Closure We have an area of the uppermost portion of the Grey Reef Section of the North Platte River that is closed for the month of April in the name of “spawning eduction”. This was done by the WY G&F  in 2007 when the North Platte Lodge sold this land to the Bureau of Land Management for public enjoyment. The confusion happens when folks assume this is intended to protect spawning trout to facilitate trout recruitment and to not harass them when they are most vulnerable. The closure is geographical/landmark defined. This boundary includes two very productive runs that are fair-game in terms of not targeting trout on the redds (spawning beds) and some significant spawning gravel. However, this closed section terminates in a large spawning area that isn’t protected by the closure. The trout spawn is longer than a month so the spawning beds get trampled, eggs crushed and “spawners” get targeted, by anglers, on May 1. It is better than nothing? Maybe/probably. It works great for us since the lodge is located adjacent to this area we get little traffic during one of the busiest months of the year. The survey suggests a new closure in the Ledge Creek area to actually protect spawning trout and their nests. We are a little bit conflicted on this proposal. We absolutely support a culture when fly anglers refuse to target trout while they are spawning and to not wade through spawning areas after the trout have returned to regular activities but before the babies have departed the gravel. We want healthy recruitment of trout and we feel that targeting spawners is pretty sad. We understand that from a management perspective it is much easier to enforce geographical boundaries and stay out of the pissing match of spawn anglers claiming not to be in the redds. But, this does unfairly restrict anglers who don’t/won’t target actively spawning fish. This one can have the unintended consequence of putting additional pressure on runs that are open, keeping in mind that Grey Reef has far fewer miles of available fishing in the spring than it does later in the year and it is the busiest time on the river. This compounds the angling pressure. In a perfect world, fly anglers would respect spawning trout and it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s not a perfect world. We have suggested signing critical spawning habitat up and down the river., not just in limited areas, to start a culture that frowns upon this practice. A volunteer group of guides/trout enthusiasts would be responsible to post these areas, with the blessing of landowners,  in March and remove the signs in June. There would be some shaming for folks caught fishing in these areas and that’s probably ok. This industry needs some self reflection. We are strongly in favor of not targeting spawning fish in the entirety of the river (including Miracle Mile) while not restricting targeting legitimately feeding fish. Now, if we could just mandate a minimum flow of 3000cfs in April and May we’d be set:)