This was our first trip out to Utah and we discovered the Green was a beautiful river with many miles of great trout fishing. We fished the upper river the first evening in the “frog” water and found it very difficult. The water didn’t have much current so the trout had plenty of time to inspect our flies and reject them. Jerry caught one nice rainbow around 18 inches, but that was all we managed for the evening. We walked the lower A section of the river the next day and had much better luck throwing wooly buggers to fish holding off the banks. We caught a couple of nice hook-jawed male browns, the largest being close to 21 inches. A couple of smaller 14 inch rainbows also fell for the bugger. We found a really nice spot about a mile and a half up from Big Hole that held a lot of fish, including some spotted cutthroat. We met a couple of locals who gave us a lift down river in their drift boat. It was our first time flyfishing in a drift boat and all I can say is...it was awesome. We threw dries the whole way down river, casting a fish on almost every drift. All you had to do was cast up next to the bank, throw a mend in the line, and just wait for the fish to slam the fly. We tried dragging caddis across the surface and the fish would chase them down and explode on the fly.

We returned here the next day and we all had success with a local dry fly pattern called the PMX. It was exciting to watch 18-20 inch fish slam the fly. We also got into a BWO hatch and the fish fed like crazy for about a half hour. It was windy, which made casting tough and we also broke off a lot of fish. We all landed some nice fish, including my first cutthroat, a fat 18 inch female. One of the pretty fish I have seen. Jerry got a ride down the river again in the drift boat, while Steve and I worked out way back downstream. While the river proved to be pretty tough, it definitely offers a challenge to a skilled angler and I look forward to returning in the future. The best flies were small cone-head Wooly Bugger in either black or olive, black beauties, zebra midges, and a couple of local dry fly patterns, the PMX and the Triple-Double.