Summer Fly Fishing Notes - 2019
Platte River Miracle Mile – June 15-16
Notes: High usage area, but quality average size of fish. Some beautiful fish, but a sad amount of fish with hook damage. Above is a nice rainbow with talon marks, and a hook wound. Edges of faster water much more productive than trying to stalk even, wide spots. Fish where spin gear anglers can’t. Watch out for cow crap. Rubber legs, zebra midge, RS2, caddis.
Lake in the Big Horns - June 21
Notes: Not sure how well-known this lake is, so I am not revealing the name, but there are grayling. Four and a half mile hike on a well-marked trail until the descent to the lake. Trailhead was at 8200, and lake around 9300. Would be easy to get off the trail, so using OnXmaps or some sort of GPS will help save a detour. Small buggers with a little flash was the ticket. Stopped after two fish each because the lake was mostly frozen and didn’t feel the need to put holes in the mouths of too many fish that just survived winter.
Tongue River June 21-22 Notes: Wanted to catch a cutthroat so tried the Tongue. Drove north through Dayton and accessed Tongue Canyon and regretted it immediately. The water was fine but some tough access in spots. Caught some browns and a rainbow but nothing of much size. Lots of foot traffic, very few spots to park and almost no places to camp. Fortunately, we wised up and left. Had to backtrack and meet up with 14 headed west. Camped on the South Tongue near Prune Creek. Incredible fishing for browns and rainbows, but most of the fish were smaller than 10 inches. Plenty of room to walk the shores. Foam caddis, even on the swing worked as did the typical midge battery. In the morning we found the North Tongue river and finally felt like we were where we wanted to be. Meandering river in a meadow, and cutthroats in the mid-teens. Clear water. Spooky fish. Pools and cuttbanks. So much fun but only had a few hours since we’d wasted most of the previous day and had to drive back to Laramie.Local shop: https://www.anglingdestinations.com/fly-shop-bighorns