Juvenile Browns Plentiful In The Green
The annual Utah rifle deer hunt is a wonderful family time for me and I relish the opportunity to spend a few days enjoying the fall colors and carving out a few hours to fish the Green River below the Flaming Gorge Dam. This year, although frustrating at times, Don Jr. and a close family friend and I were excited to see hundreds of juvenile brown trout that literally dominated the fishing below the dam. Here is our report.
With so much water in Flaming Gorge Reservoir this year, and with the huge runoff farther upstream in Wyoming from the upper Green River and other sources, water managers have been moving a lot of extra water through the dam and into the lower Green River this summer in even into the fall.
A local guide explained that the water level in the river has been so high that the smaller brown trout were able to avoid predation and prosper in the high water. In normal years, most of the brown trout in the 4 to 8 inch size classes fall prey to larger fish, but with more places for these fish to hide, eat, and grow, they have adapted well to the river and are currently the most active fish in the river.
At first glance, we assumed that by throwing Rapala-style floating jerkbaits the action would be brisk at the worst and we would enjoy 20- to 30-fish days at best. The results were even better than that in sheer numbers but we caught a lot more juvenile browns than the larger fish.
Where to Fish on the Green River
We fished parts of the A, B, and C portions of the Green but only from the shore, finding deeper areas near bends in the river and then watching each cast to see the size of fish holding in each pool. Armed with our large Rapalas, we soon realized that the only fish we could see were schools of juvenile browns eager to follow our lures but not willing to hit our large jerkbaits.
In the fall, we carry a couple of rods with us so I, and then the others, quickly downsized our presentation and almost instantly began catching fish that ranged from 6 to 20 inches. The photo for this column shows a 10-inch brown that was typical of our catches last week, but in reality, we all caught larger and even much smaller fish as well. But, that wasn’t really the biggest surprise.
Successful Lures
One of my “go-to” lures for fall fishing has always been a Jake’s Spin-A-Lure, gold with red dots, and last week, instead of using the standard 5/8-ounce version, I downsized to the smallest Jake’s available, a lure that reminded me of a Blue Fox spinner except in the exact colors of my favorite Jake’s. The lure was a “Jake’s” but instead of the body of the lure being gold with red dots, only the blade had the red dots and the rest of the lure was painted solid gold.
When fished through deeper holes, this smaller lure didn’t attract many bites but when we tried fishing in the current above and below the deep holes in as little as one foot of water, we could literally get bites on every single cast. To be sure, most of those bites came from juvenile browns but every once in a while, a 12 to 20-incher would rise to the occasion and surprise us with a massive strike.
The shocking part of the experience to us was how shallow the fish were and how active they were without seeing more than a half-dozen fish surface the entire time we fished.
If the number of smaller fish are any indication of the health of the Green River, the fishing throughout the remainder of the fall and on into next year should be fantastic. The river looked healthy, grass beds were thick and lush, and the crystal clear water was truly a joy to fish. If you have ever wanted to fish the “Green” now is the time to give it a try.
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