A Platte River Report

I had to drive up to Casper, Wyoming for a business thing on Friday. This was good for two reasons:first, it meant a day driving and out of the office. Score! Second, it meant I would be in the neighborhood of the fabled North Platte, one of my favorite rivers. Double Score! I loaded up my gear Thursday evening and eagerly awaited the next morning's drive.

After the roads opened up (they closed due to a snowstorm, which also knocked out power at our HQ) I bebopped on up through the shirley basin, bucking a wind that was probably 35mph sustained, with some seriously butt-clenching gusts. Always fun. Got up to Casper, did the meeting, and headed to the Gray Reef. The tent was pitched right away, and I geared up and headed down to the water to see what was what.

On the river, directly below the damn, I got about zero hits and no interest shown from the wiley Platte River troots. They were rising very sporadically to midges, but all of my imitations fell short that evening. Such is life on a highly pressured tailwater. I fished until I couldn't see to tie on new flies, and hit the rack for a flippin' cold night of sleep.

The next morning I was up at 5, mostly to get some warm coffee in my gut. Jet-boil to the rescue. Apparently getting an early start is not a big thing at the Reef, as I was the only one moving around at that time, so I had a gorgeous sunrise all to myself:

I started fishing, then moved to the other side of the river, as the dam was letting out a lot of water, making casting tough on the road-side. Nothing was moving, bug-wise, but since the midges were coming off the night before, I figured there must be some chironomids in the water. A little while with the snow-cone, and this little fatty pulled my bobber down:

It was after that fish had been lovingly released that the crowd started to show up. From about 7am to noon there was a steady stream of boats launching, and there was a veritable crowd fishing around the dam. Not exactly your solitary fishing experience, but it was expected. Lots of waters are still locked up in ice right now, and the Platte is a pretty damn good fishery.

So me and twenty of my closest friends flogged water for a few more hours, with not much to show for it. I think I saw one fish caught a little further down river, and a few LDR's, but that's about it. At around 11:30 the wind started to pick up, and I was thinking about leaving, when a beast of a trout rose about ten feet in front of me. The proverbial middle finger. I searched deep in my fly boxes and pulled out a little-bitty bowtie buzzer, size 18 or 20, and tied it on some 5x with a single split shot about a foot and a half above it. I've never had much luck with such tiny flies, but nothing else was working, so what the heck. I fished it for about twenty minutes, and sure shootin', I caught the right drift and we had another bobber-down! This fish was a little beefier than the first, and took me for a wild ride. We even went downriver a few yards, and the whole time I was praying that the 5x would hold. Had the water been a little warmer and the fish had a little more energy, it may have bested me, but the fates were on my side that day, and I landed this lovely, lovely rainbow:

Here's a closeup where you can kinda see the fly:

Needless to say, I was pumped. The only problem is that now I may have peaked early this season, but ya know, that's a good problem to have!

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