I had promised my boyfriend a guided trip down the Green River, below the Flaming Gorge Dam, for his birthday in April. When I asked a buddy from the gym when we should go, he suggested to wait until the fish were feeding on dry flies. So we waited, and waited, and waited, until August 5th, when I was told the fishing should be epic.
We camped Friday, and woke up Saturday ready to hit the river. We rolled up to the meeting place for our guide service, and this white Toyota 4Runner rolls into the parking lot with a drift boat painted like a trout with the Spinner Fall guide company logo marked on the front. If I'm being honest, when Scottie stepped out of the car, I didn't know what to expect. When we asked what the plan was, his response was, "I dunno, I figured I'd meet you guys and see what you wanna do..". In my mind, I thought, "uh, catch really big fish."
We drive down to Little Hole, and as Scottie started dropping to boat into the river, Rex sets my fly rod up with a brand new leader. Not even 2 minute later, Scottie's nipping it off sayin, "I want something a little more robust."
We start down the river, and it becomes real...we're in for an epic day. We turned on some music, started jamming Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and Led Zepelin. It wasn't too long before Rex starts slaying the trout, and we knew we were paired with the sickest guide on the river.
It wasn't long before I started casting myself. We roll down a set of uneventful class 3 rapids and Scottie pulls us up behind this boulder, saying, "Alright Kristin, you ever caught a fish to Tupac before?". Spoiler alert, now I've caught a few fish to Tupac, and I couldn't be more pumped. Shortly after, Scottie hops out of the boat and starts walking the boat up river. This guy wasn't messing around.
We pulled off at a campground for lunch where he set us up with some delicious chicken caesar wraps, pickled veggies, carrots, celery, nuts, you name it. Before we knew it, we were back to floatin, and slaying fish. Rex hooked into a rad brown trout with a gnarly scar on his back from being swooped out of the river by a local bird of prey.
We float into the C-section, and anchor up waiting for a gust of wind to quit giving us grief, when Rex noticed a fish feeding by the bank. Scottie mentioned it might be the same huge Brownie he'd tried hunting on a guide trip just one day before us. He ties Rex up with a single dry fly beetle, and WAM, the fish slams it. Needless to say, Scottie and Rex shared the highest of fives.
We were one of the first boats on the river that morning, and we had so much fun, we were nearly one of the last ones off the river that evening. Scotties rowed us down that river and against the wind for around 10 hours that day, and gave us one of our favorite fishing experiences to date.
If you're looking to float The Green, call Spinner Fall guide service, and if you're lucky, you might be paired with Scott Barrus.
- K