Big Laramie, Big Surprises, Wyoming

 

Grayling in Wyoming

 

2020 continues to throw us curve balls.  During my visit to Wyoming, the area sustained a major wildfire named The Mullen Fire.  This one is still burning, and its quite sad how many amazing acres of nature have burned.  Instead of traveling south today, we were forced to find some new waters to fish.  We located a stretch of water on the Big Laramie River, which we have never fished before.  As many of you know, fishing new waters can sometimes be challenging, but trout are trout, and this is the challenge that keeps us all exploring.  When we stop exploring, we grow sedentary, and when that happens, nothing good happens.

 

Mullen Fire

 

My buddy Kevin and I packed up a couple of rods and headed out.  We traveled light, this was an exploratory mission to find new fishable waters that we could return to year after year.  We found an amazing stretch of water on The Big Laramie, and only after fishing it, and consulting with our local resources, we learned we didn’t fish the right section!  There is another section just below with larger pools, more runs, and larger fish.  I can’t wait for next year!!!

 

 

 

We started out like most people fishing near a large pool near the parking lot.  That pool proved fruitful quickly, yielding several small brown trout.  The first pool we found was a large deep pool, where we added large weights and fished a deep running nymph rig.  Adding split shot was the key early as these fish were DEEP.  I fished a pheasant tail up top you guessed it, a zebra midge below.  The red zebra midge out preformed the black two to one.  

 

Local Brown

 

After about 30 minutes and eight trout, my buddy Kevin asked if we could go back to the ranch to get the rest of the guys, since we were on fish.  As you could imagine, I was hooking trout every other cast, and needed to warn him that I needed twelve more casts.  Shortly after seventy four more casts, I decided it was time to go get the other guys.  

 

Kevin Hansen of Rod & Rivet

 

On the “last“ cast, I hooked a solid fish.  This one was larger than the others.  It was odd, but it appears to be more of a silver color in a sea of brown trout.  I’d say it looked like fourteen inches or so during the fight.  When it got close to the net, I thought it was a whitefish.  When it got in the net I knew that I had just landed an Artic Grayling.  Wait what?  The last grayling I caught was in Alaska.  A quick check of the fin, and it was confirmed.  How cool is this!!!  

 

Grayling

 

Later in the day, I spoke with a women that was walking her lab on the trail and we had a great conversation.  She told me all about the river and what was in there.  She also said that she had not heard of anyone catching a Grayling in this river in the fifteen years she had been hiking this trail, and her husband is a fishing guide.  How cool is that!  

Until next time, tight lines my friends!

Jeff