Every conversation involves concern for water supply leading into the 2026 fishing season. Terms like “scary” and “crazy” seem to be the buzz. No question we’ve had an unusual winter. It’s been warm and dry in the Platte River Valley and we’ve just started getting some of our spring winds. Fishing has been great, though. At the time of writing this, we are expecting a high near 70 degrees. What does this all mean for your fishing trips this year? We’ve been doing this for nearly 30 years, so we have a little depth in this discussion. But one thing is for certain, Grey Reef flows are almost always counterintuitive.
Looking at the USDA daily snow water equivalent maps for Wyoming and our neighboring states, things might not be as Chicken Little as has been driven into our skull.
Grey Reef is the 5th impoundment along the North Platte River Reservoir chain that is fed primarily from the mountain ranges in northern Colorado, Southern Wyoming and some from Central Wyoming… Seminoe, Kortes, Pathfinder, Alcova and finally Grey Reef. There are reservoirs downstream that do impact our flows and also pickup runoff from other mountain ranges in Central Wyoming. There are states downstream that impact our flows. It’s a very interesting juggling exercise that is mostly controlled by valves and switches rather than Mother Nature’s will.
The concept of runoff, or lack thereof, does not really apply at Miracle Mile and Grey Reef. Seminoe and Pathfinder are each a million acre/ft impoundment and both are currently in the lower 30% of storage. We’ve experienced around 17% of capacity in 2009 and by 2011 we were 100% with more water than the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers could deal with. Our current snow water equivalent stats for the ranges that matter to us are 65, 71, 70 and 90%. Snow water equivalent is the amount of water currently stored in the snowpack based on a 30 year average. This doesn’t account for water that has left the snowpack nor the snowpack we generally gain in late March and April. The real question is how does this impact the river and the fishing?
We predict Spring and Fall will be pretty typical 500cfs flows and banger fishing like Grey Reef does every year, without fail. If conditions remain on this trajectory we’ll probably see 800cfs – 1500cfs mid-May into the first week of June before irrigation season really kicks off. Nebraska will undoubtedly be calling for water and that means Grey Reef flows will be healthy. If flows do stay in this range, Grey Reef will experience really cool FLY fishing. It is still very wadable at these flows and will result in great dry fly, emerger rig and sight fishing…all while being able to fish entirely from the boat if that is your jam?
We expect summer flows to be in the mid 2000cfs and that is a great level for PMD, Yellow Sallie, trico, BWO, pseudo and Caddis fishing. We do like more volume for hoppers, but they’ve been pretty sporadic the past few years anyway. Our biggest concern is that the BuRec has to balance reservoir storage use not only for 2026 but 2027 and even beyond. We wouldn’t be surprised if flows were reduced to 1200-1500cfs in mid August when water temps generally start to increase in all trout rivers. Late August through early September could have us on a schedule to fish earlier and get off earlier. The other issue is that our trout recruitment doesn’t have any teeth under 3000cfs so we will likely have a weak 2026 year class of our wild trout. We view the standard fish per mile target is too high to cultivate our big slobs that we love so much. Fewer fish doesn’t align with poor fishing.
At this point we feel very fortunate with our situation, especially when you lean it up against what could be coming down the pike for some other great western trout streams if we/they don’t get some big spring storms.

The North Platte River and we have some operational changes starting in 2026 Pegging beads (attractors) is no longer allowed at Fremont Canyon or Grey Reef. All flies must be barbless in Miracle Mile, Fremont Canyon, the Afterbay and Grey Reef. These new regulations only have positive impacts on our operation since we don’t peg or fish barbs. Also, over the counter fishing licenses ARE NOT AVAILABLE anywhere in Alcova. Make sure to purchase your fishing licenses prior to arriving. Go to the Wyoming Game and Fish website and purchase them there.