FLY FISHING THE NORTH PLATTE RIVER AND IT'S HEADWATERS - NORTH PARK, COLORADO AND WYOMING (AUGUST 2014)

For my 39th birthday, I decided to take a solo trip into Wyoming to fish the North Platte and it's headwaters. I can’t emphasize enough just how amazing the North Park watershed and the North Platte River really are. Despite blown out conditions the first day (i.e., chocolate milk), following a 5-inch rain storm that hit the watershed in the middle of the week, the North Platte fished remarkably well in the Northgate Canyon section on the Wyoming side. I was there for two days (Aug 1-2), which was the tailing peak of the blow out. Local guides told me that the 650 cfs mark would be the green light for a return to good fishing conditions. Camping was easy, as the entire area is national forest and there are access roads everywhere with nobody around. I have a favorite spot in a mixed aspen/spruce forest five minutes east of the split of highways 125 and 127.


The North Platte River

 

 

On Day 1, to keep myself occupied, I fished two local tributary rivers (Richards State Wildlife Area and Michagon River) in the North Park watershed that had received much less rain and had already pushed the runoff water down river. They were classic wide meanders with undercut outside banks with tall grasses and inside gravel bars. I landed a lot of 11-12” browns on dry flies (specifically #14 green drake). Best fish was an 18-20” brown that hit a #6 yellow stonefly (can’t remember specific pattern) in a deep 8-10 foot pool, which went airborne and snapped my tippet at the base of my leader (think I'm going to start using tippet rings).

 

Then on Day 2, I hiked ~3.5 miles downstream from the Six-Mile Gap access and fished the North Platte at Northgate Canyon and conditions just got better and better. Patterns that produced fish included mostly big stoneflies, but specifically #8 and #10 Pat’s Rubber legs, #6 and #8 Yellow Sallies, #16 olive caddis pupae and #16 BH copper john. The larger fish in the North Platte are meat eaters and as a result, they grow really big. The absolute highlight of the trip was landing a big beautiful brown (“butter belly”) on a fly that my 7-year old son tied. I grabbed the fly out of his fly box before I left… who would have guessed?

 



Big beautiful brown caught on a #16 BH Red Copper John tied by my 7-year old son.

The wildlife I encountered in 48 hours up there was insane (foxes, porcupines, snakes, moose, coyotes, mule deer, golden eagles, HUGE rabbits, bull elk and black bear). On the morning hike downriver on Day 2, I found fresh bear scat on the trail loaded with berries. When I crossed back over the same path an hour later, there were fresh bear paw prints in it (momma bear and baby cub). Yikes.

Yeah, that's black bear poop.