Have you ever had a day where the fish were so big, so strong and so plentiful that your arm was sore and tired by the end of the day. Well that was not only the case for one but for three fisherman who decided to fish the Green River below Fontenelle Dam outside Kemmerer Wyoming. Two of our Pro Staff have been talking about a nice big water trip for a while. So Alan Gallegos and Marcus Chambers decided to take a Thursday and make the 2 hour drive North East to Wyoming. Alans nephew Ronnie, who is an avid fly fisherman was along for the journey as well.
The journey started in the northern part of Salt Lake City as they left on I84 East until they intersected I80 and drove past Evenston until they hit the US189 and drove north toward Kemmerer. A neat fact about Kemmerer is that the original JC Penny store was started there and is still open. They continued on 189 until they came to Fontenelle Dam Road and turned right. This road basically will take you all the way down to the river so then you can find yourself a parking spot and a way to access the water and grab your waders and boots and get ready to fish.
On this day everyone was running a 3 fly setup. 1 heavy fly to help get the others down, a smaller midge pattern and the trailing fly was an emerger pattern. Well let me tell you the ticket for success was that emerger. I would say about 80% of the fish that day came on that emerger pattern. The line was Rio’s fluoroflex 4x-5x. Be carefully with the 5x because there are fish in there that are 24″+ that will grab your fly run for fast water and before you even can realize what is happening, SNAP! There goes 3 flies worth $8 and about 10 minutes of not fishing having to re-rig your setup and not fish.
We they arrived at the river there were probably about 2 people they could see on the river at 8:30. By 9:00 there were at least 10-15 people hitting spots with hopes and dreams of landing a big fish. They were lucky enough to get into a spot that was nicknamed the hog trough because it seemed that fat pigs of fish were stacking up and waiting in line for a chance to take a fly. They bounced back and fourth between two sections of the river picking up fish in each section on a consistent basis and even allowing time for Alan’s arm to rest for a conference call he had to take around lunch.
By the end of the day each of the three anglers had caught double digit numbers of fish all over 18 inches long. Several of the fish even went on massive runs toward the bottom of the run the were fishing and took one of them down stream at least 120 yards to where he had to walk down stream reeling fast to try and keep the fish from losing tension on the line. Alan even had the Fontelle Slam of a brown, rainbow, colorado cutthroat and cutbow all in the net that day. Each fish was over 18″ in size as well.
Thank you for reading about our adventure and hopefully joining us on our next one. By fishing here you might be able to catch a Colorado Cutthroat Trout which will help you complete the Wyoming Cut Slam as well As the Western Native Trout Challenge. Keep up with us on our social media pages and also our you tube channel for more adventures and giveaways. Visit our Blog page for past adventures and when thinking about ordering fishing gear use our partners page as they help keep us on the water and able to bring you more information and adventures. Always visit you local fly shop as well and support small business. When you ask for information you are asking guys who have put in the work to figure things out to help you. Help there shops by buying flies, hats, stickers or any other products that will help keep them on the water for your benefit as well.
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