Anyone fish the North Platte? Mile or gray reef

[BigDan]

All of my fishing trips this year have been nixed for one reason or another but it looks like I'm finally going to fish some non-local waters. My brother lives in Wyoming and we're going to meet up and fish the North Platte for 2 days this coming weekend. We'll be limited to public access areas on the Gray Reef. I have two pontoons but with Wyoming's stupid stream access laws, I don't know if we'll use them. We'll probably stick to wading the water that we can access.

From putzing around the internet and some of the books I've read, it sounds like dry fly fishing is minimal and there are several hatches right now. Trico's in the morning then PMD and caddis in the afternoon/evening. So I tied up a handful of foam wing RS2's, red and purple san juans, red rock worms and some pine squirrel leeches.

Does anyone have any tips for fishing the North Platte this time of year?

My brother is still a little new to fly fishing and his success has been limited. I really want him to enjoy this trip so any help would be genuinely appreciated. Thanks!

[rizeye]

I have fished the reeef the last 3 spring, 1st or 2nd week of April, the fishing is stupid good. There are many access areas for floaters and the signage is good as to what is private vs public. Several shops provide shuttle service too.
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medial...latteGuide.pdf
I have never dry fly fished in April but pine squirrle leech, san juan woorm, always seem to be on the menu.

good luck

[BigDan]

Got back today, fishing was stupid good despite some done pretty murky water. I don't think we had a fish under 16 the first day with most over 18. This morning was a little tougher but eventually we figured them out and caught a good handful of fish.

[Marco]

However! NO pictures, NO fish.


Mark

PS: AND, because it was TOO far for you I didn't offer MY favorite Platte spot at "Treasure Island" just South of Saratoga. BUT, I too offer NO pics so my integrity is all I can post.

[rizeye]

Big Dan,

What stretch did you fish? Did you do a float or just fish from shore. Yea, I had some stupid good fishing on the Reef too.

.P1010012.jpg

[BigDan]

Yeah, sorry for the no pictures, my only camera is my phone and that river is slippery as goose **** so I opted not to chance ruining my new phone and left it in the truck. Which was a good decision, I took a mighty spill about 15 minutes before we finished fishing.

We ended up just fishing right beneath the dam. That's where we started out and we never really moved. We tried to blindly fish a few section a little further downstream but the water was so murky you couldn't tell if it was 1 ft deep or 10 ft deep. All we caught while trying other spots was weeds so eventually we ended up beneath the dam again. One of the other fly fisherman we met referred to the river as 'turned over' which I guess refers to the murky weedy water which makes fishing difficult.