Green Below Fontenelle July 11-12, 2015

Date / Time: Saturday July 11 evening through Sunday, July 12, 2015 afternoon Location: Green Below Fontenelle. Weeping Rock CG area The Characters: KK solo Weather: Sunny, some clouds. Slightly breezy, temps in low 80s Water Temp: Warming, guessing low 60s Water Level: Around 1100 cfs Water Clarity/Quality: Crystal Moon Phase: 2 days before new Hatches: PMDs, Caddis, Sallies Best Flies: Rusty Spinner, PMD emerger, Floating PMD Nymph Widow Wing KK Sally Fishing: Water had just come down a day or two previous, so wasn’t sure how it would be but it was on fire. Drove up solo Saturday evening, didn’t get fishing until 9pm or so. Billions of caddis and spinners in bushes and air around river. Fish were up all through the Weeping Rock Flat, nobody around except father and son intermediate anglers. Fished up river right below cliffs, but fish were spooky. Crossed and fished up and stuck a few good fish on spinners which were all over the water. Got a 18-19 brown, cutty and bows I think. Stuck 3 or so. Crossed back over and fished way up until couldn’t see spinner. Fish got on caddis as light faded. Fish were sporadic at first and as light faded, it ended up going off as it got dark. Got a few on the bigger ez tan caddis and eventually a few on big stimmy. Mosquitoes out but slight breeze made it not a big deal. Next day got up early around 5 am after camping on bluff above river, fish were up already when I looked at water. Broke camp down and got geared up to float with my new pram. After monkeying around with the stupid dolly I built for an hour or so needlessly I got the boat in the water. Rowed across to test and the oars were falling apart from being loose. I went back and dealt with all that and launched at the gap in the cliffs above Weeping Rock. Rowed across and fished to the sippers on the far bank and hooked one on the soft hackle rusty, killer fish 19 or so bow that ripped. Worked down and they were up all down the bank, got another one that was in super tight subtle sipping another killer bow. Crossed and got a pig that was in tight below the cliffs. All on rusty conventional and floating pmd nymph and soft hackle. Crossed back over and good pod was working, got a pig out of there that ripped down river jumping well into backing maybe farthest into backing I have got, epic battle landed it about 20-21. By then PMDs going good and spinners fading probably 9:30ish. Fish were chowing pmds in the riffle opposite the campground and below the cable. Got out and worked up and stuck a couple good fish on PMD emergers. They were subtle and in super shallow water and hard to see. Boats and other fishermen were all throwing nymphs and streamers and there were quite a few. Continued to work down and tons of fish up top left above big drop in the meadow. Stuck several more pigs through there mostly on PMD emergers. One more super pig way over in shallow water that went way into backing again and kicked my ass. Stopped on opposite side and anchored boat, wading back up to drive truck down to meadow. There were fish up in that shallow too, but didn’t get those. Went back down and worked pod on river left opposite meadow and couldn’t get them to eat. Eventually realized they were on sallies after looking down and seeing sallies floating by. Put on sally and immediately got eats. Stuck a few there and moved down into car body. Got a pig there in the shallow bottom left that ripped the hell out of me again. Called it a day on that fish and drove down to Green River to meet Tammy and Anna who were at Kat’s. Ran into Zach’s buddy TJ and talked to him for a bit, he had done nothing but nymphed like everyone else I saw…funny despite the people I had the risers and shallow feeders to myself. Epic day.