Last Day, Back to Weeping Rocks on the Green River

Since it was the last day of the trip; Friday already, Nick and I had to make a plan so we would leave on time.  We needed to be home by 5:00 for the big birthday celebration for the four family members with birthdays in October.  This meant we needed to leave by 1:00 so we would have time to stop in Evanston for a Chinese buffet Late-lunch.  There is also the tent to put away and the car to load. We better give ourselves two hours for this, especially if we want to eat a sandwich while we’re at it.  So we better finish fishing by 11:00. 

Since our guide, Ryan, seemed to have so much faith in the fishing at Weeping Rocks, we decided to fish there.  This seemed to be a stretch of the river that could be easily fished by wading.  Plus it is only five miles away from our camp.  Except after we had travelled ten miles, I asked Nick if we had passed the turn off, oops. 

At Weeping Rocks Campground, we parked in one of the closest camping spots to the river and we were the first ones there.  Shortly after we arrived, three rigs with drift boats pulled up.  This group, however, didn’t seem too anxious to get going and didn’t launch until Nick and I were leaving.

Nick rigged up similar to how the guide had us rig, which is also similar to how we rigged up for the North Platte - a large red midge imitation and a red San Juan Worm.  Although the first fish was somewhat small, Nick consistently caught rainbows during our brief stay.

 

 

Earlier in the week I saw a couple of veteran fly fishermen fishing in the evening at the bend in front of our tent.  They would wade out from shore five to 10 feet in water about knee deep and as they waded downstream, would cast straight out towards the middle of the river.  Without stripping the line in they would let the current take the fly downstream until it had drifted directly below them.  They would take a couple steps downstream and make another cast.

This seemed like a good technique.  I put on a bullet head wooly bugger, brown with yellow rubber legs.  I waded in about knee deep and with a double haul, cast straight out as far as I could, perpendicular to the bank.  I allowed the current to take the fly downstream on a tight line.  When the fly was straight down stream, I would strip in a few feet of the line and then double haul another cast out to the middle of the river. 

 

Doing this, I would fish downstream through what looked like the most productive stretch of river.  As I got to the end of this stretch I had a strike.  The strike on a streamer is so definite it is sure to start the adrenaline running.  This was a hard fighting fish. After a few good runs, I ended up landing the large rainbow, a good reward for an hour of chucking a streamer.