Winter Fishing - Green River... Day 1

We finally had an opportunity to get Chris out of the house. His Birthday was a few days ago and the leg was healing so I thought I give him a shout and see if he felt up to it, with a broken leg a drift boat would be the best option. He was in…. I think he was in even if the leg wasn't ready. I was snowboarding with my friend Scott on day, we were talking about fishing, he wanted to go and I told him about Chris. I took him all of a split second to go. So, Scott volunteered his services and that was all it took, for the next two days we will be fishing the Green River. Now its not a top choice of rivers but in this particular situation is was better than great.

The drive was hinting at wind, you could tell by the way it blew the car around or you could just look out at the trees bent over to the ground. If that didn't give it away the five foot snow drifts and blowing snow might bring it to attention ; )When we arrived at the shop to get a shuttle it was still blowing a cold fierce wind. It's going to be a cold one was an understatement; its going to be freezing was more like it. Last stop before launch, time to layer up….. Thermal t-shirt, two expeditions weight long-sleeve thermal shirts, fleece, and light down jacket, soft-shell jacket, and shell. Hat, beanie and sunglasses, by now you start to feel like that kid that's all bundled up from the movie "Christmas Story". That was every last stitch of clothing I had, but I feared it wouldn't be enough. By this time Chris is going bonkers, the anxiety of the possibilities were stronger than ever, he was like a kid waiting for Christmas and Santa himself was handing him the presents. He had a remedy for it; he busted out something called "zing-zang" and a Corona. Mixing the two together to creates a fisherman's drink for floating the river. Now this intrigued Scott so he had to have one, I don't drink so I stuck to the old stand-by, a Red Bull.

Camera ...check, life jacket… check, rod glued to hand… check, Zing-zang and smokes in holder…check, wind and cold… check, check and check. We are off; right out of the gate Chris sticks a few Bows on the sticker. This is going to be a good day we all though. Well, we were certainly mistaken. It was a tough, cold day. A day that the river tosses her furry. The wind was not cooperating, Scott did well giving the conditions and the time spent behind the Oars. I am glad I wasn't rowing, not sure if we would have made it back in one piece. We managed to bang a few rocks but nothing to major. A few sippers could be seen; I made a few casts to em', hooked a few but unfortunately never landed a single one of them stupid stunted sippers. But it was fun and Scott killed it getting me in range, I just blew it.

Everyone needed a break, I am sure Scott was tired fighting the gale wind all day. Lunch sounded good. Chris brought Birthday party left avers, BBQ chicken wings, about thirty of them. Nothing could have been better on a cold winter day. We rigged up for the afternoon float; hopefully we figure it out soon.

I put away the dry fly rod, put away the nymphs and indicators and broke out the gun. The first test run for the Echo2 was not an easy task, even for the 9' 6" 5wt. I had my doubts. I add a sink tip and a heavily weighted bugger to the scenario. I went with the old Green river stand by, the "Goldylocks", tied on the largest one I had. Lucky for me it paid off, fish were hitting the thing left and right. My fish count was now tied with Chris and the last inning was turning out to be a rally. Sight fishing buggers is one of the funniest ways to fish. You were pretty much swimming them along the bottom, dropping them off the rocks to get in the cracks and then watching the follow, the flash and feeling the tug is out right amazing. This ended almost as fast as it started and in a blink of an eye it was over. I had a ton of hits, finally landed a few fish and we may have figured it out. A great first day; it was quiet, peaceful and only one other boat on the water. The rod preformed beautifully, powering through the wind like butter. The only thing I wished was that I tried one sooner.

We reached the take out cold and hungry. Lucky for us the grill was still open and there were tables open right in front of the fire. Burgers never tasted so good. The cabin was rather nice, better than I had expected, much better than I had hoped for in a river cabin. There was some cool stuff around, a bug catcher that held skeleton of hundreds of insect's… mayflies, caddis, midges, moths and wasps. We rigged for the next day in the warmth of the cabin. Zing-zang and whiskey were flowing freely and thoughts of tomorrow float were the topic of conversation. Chris was going with the old stand-by, it worked this morning on the Bows that are stacking by the dam. Gold/ginger buggers also produced so rod number two was strung accordingly. I went the same route, dry and bugger. Although, I am going with different flies this time. Can't wait till tomorrow… hope the wind lies down