North Platte River Fishing Report: Grey Reef, Miracle Mile, Freemont Canyon
Middle of June, 2011
Call 720-851-4665 to book an August Hopper trip on Grey Reef!
Guided Trip pics from this Spring on Grey Reef and Miracle Mile
When the time comes to get away and do some fishing on my own, it’s hard for me to go anywhere besides Grey Reef and the Miracle Mile sections of the North Platte. There simply is not another section of river in the lower 48 that can rival the fishing that either of these two tail waters has to offer. With every drift I know that I have the opportunity to catch a fish of a lifetime. At the very least, I know that even the cookie cutter 17 inch North Platte rainbow is going to bend a 7 wt in half and fight me harder than any fish I have ever been able to find. The goal of this trip was to see if fish were ready to eat hoppers yet. We were happy to see LOTS OF HOPPERS ON THE BANKS, but bo eats to report. It won’t be long though and August is sure to be a blast!
6/17/11: I left Parker at 7, met my good friend Clay Reider in Greely and by 12 we had the boat in the water below Grey Reef. We also met up with another friend from Montana Miles Shae who fished with us through Sunday. With the flows being over 8,000 CFS it’s very easy to clip through some water so we did the extended float from Grey Reef to Government Bridge. Obviously at the flow we expected fish to be in slack water and on inside corners but we needed to figure out exactly how far inside and how deep. In smaller slack water spots we found the best way to fish was casting in towards the banks and really slowing the boat down. In areas of bigger slack water we would position the boat against the bank and cast out away from the bank towards the primary seams and chase our drift until we hit fish. Click the video below to find out the primary setup, flies, depth and weight that was most productive throughout our four day trip.
6/18/11: Saturday I guided a full day trip from Reef to Government bridge and fishing was steady early on, and streaky from Lusby to Government bridge. The key to the section of river between Lusby and Government is to not try and work every square inch. Once you hit a fish keep back rowing that spot. Pay attention the the speed of the water, the relationship to the main channel and the depth. If you can learn to identify the water type fish are holding in, you can continue to look for that type of water.
6/19/11: Sunday we had a fun float on the Miracle Mile. The water was murky with roughly six inches of visibility. Despite the low visibility the fish were definitely on the feed. Rubberlegs, Rusty and pink San Juans were the name of the game. For those that do not have access to a boat, the Miracle Mile is definitely your place. It’s very wade friendly in that the fish hold extremely tight to the banks and all the water is public. For more on Miracle Mile High Water tactics see the video below.
6/20/11: Sunday evening brought heavy rains to Central Wyoming and the clarity was definitely far from good as we drove by Government Bridge. On Monday we stopped by Lusby and were happy to find fishable clarity. We decided to do Reef to Lusby which worked out well because we wanted to hit the road a bit earlier. We saw two boats all day and the fishing was phenomenal from start to finish. No wind a couple scattered showers, but for the most part sunny.