Green River, Utah: 4-21 & 4-22-2012

Date / Time: 4-21-2012 and 4-22-2012 Location: Floated b section both days The Characters: First day with Tammy and Brian, second day with just Tammy with my dad and Susan in their own boat. Weather: Sunny high 70s slightly off and on breezy first day but mostly pretty calm Water Temp: low to mid 40s guess Water Level / Tide: Averaging 1600 with nightly peaks to 2400 and drops to 800. 1600 through the day when we fished. Water Clarity/Quality: Slightly off color with trib runoff. Moon Phase: New moon on the 21st. Fishing: First day floated with Brian and Tam, got on the water around noon. Billions of midges, BWOs starting. We looked for risers, but they were only sporadically rising. We fished small dry on the drift, but fish weren’t really up. We found a few pods and individuals here and there, but for the amount of bugs not a lot of fish up. Did get a few nice fish that were rising. The water had dropped only a little less than a week earlier so that might have been part of the issue. Ended up throwing dropper and got some nice bows on the 16 brown bead, but it wasn’t on fire by any means. Threw the streamer, but they weren’t into it. Found one good pod in pugs rising on BWOs on upper left and banged a few of them and another pod below pugs camp on right but not much else. Tammy got a good riser on the second pod. BK and I got our share. Fished gold streamer through rapid and pockets and hooked a couple. Also fished streamer through water below red creek, but they weren’t having it. Tons and tons of bugs drifting along banks where fish typically are up, but saw virtually no risers and ended up with only one fish on dropper below red creek. All in all decent day, but with that many bugs dry fly fishing was lacking. It was also very sunny. Second day floated just with Tammy and Susan and Dad in their boat. We got on earlier to try and see about midge risers. Got on around 9ish and billions of midges again. Fish were up good right out from ramp, but a lot of boats so we went down. I fished tammy on dry dropper with brown bead and we hooked a few, but not on fire so I assumed they were slightly deeper. Might have worked to fish the dropper a bit deeper. Found one pod in Minnesota left and dad found one right but we ended up putting them down. Switched over to big brown 14 bead with 16 baetis tungsten emerger behind and instant slaughter fest. Fish on every cast, Tammy pounded them. In certain spots, the fly would sink and immediate hook up. Flying ants then started to show and fish were popping them here and there, but we were focused on the nymph. I helped dad rig and Susan was then able to get into them too. After Tammy hammered a dozen plus losing another dozen or so, I had her row and threw the CDC ant. Got an awesome fish about 19 or so and super fat on river right grasshopper channel, killer eat and battle. Fished that for a bit but they weren’t super on it. Went to the bobber rig and it continued to slaughter into lunch. Lunched at trails end and fish started coming up in eddy, moving a lot with the warm weather and fast taking off BWOs. Slid the boat out and anchored and banged a couple on the ant. Dad got one too. After lunch, worked the any along some edges, but not really into it. Did find one pod on lower left just below Big Pine. Anchored up, but wind gust put them down possibly us too. As we moved into washboard, saw one more riser in last little eddy above top and got a killer downstream eat on the bwo emerger thing i have been tying. Good fish, good battle. Fished the bwo on edges through rapid, but no eats amazingly. Went back to the bobber at the bottom rapid and pounded a bunch of super hot fish in the water right below the rapid. Fished through pugs, but not much happening.  Did hook a nice one on shoal above red creek rapid. Fished below red creek here and there, and got a few on nymph but mainly pushed out. Again, saw no risers along edges despite all the bugs. Great day, but again for the virtual non stop carpet hatch minimal risers. Bet the evenings and early mornings were awesome although flows might have made it not so much.