Little Laramie, Big Fish in Wyoming

 

Last week I was fortunate to be invited to join a good friend of mine, Kevin Hansen, owner of our local fly shop in Des Moines on a trip to Wyoming.  Kevin has some connections to a ranch located right on the Little Laramie.  Don’t let the name fool you, there are some BIG fish in the Little Laramie.  I pointed the Jeep west at around 6am on Friday, and was standing in my waders on the river around 2:30.  Not a bad drive, filled with conference calls before the lack of cell phone coverage gave me some peace from the real world.  The water was very low this week, so we concentrated on fishing the deep holes.  

 

 

The gear list for this trip was pretty simple, El Jefe in 4, 6, & 8 weight.  I really enjoyed the time “testing” El Jefe out on the large fish, and was so excited that each rod size stood up to the test.  I’ve personally landed at least eight trout, over twenty inches, on our six weight El Jefe, and continue to be impressed by how well it casts in many fishing situations.  4 weight was rigged up with a dry and dropper combination, 6 weight was the traditional nymphing rig with two flies and an indicator, and 8 weight was the streamer set up.  The main combo I used was the six weight.  I was impressed to be able to land 24-26 inch trout with plenty of power and fish turning ability.  We missed the hopper season, as the previous weeks 12 inches of snow killed off all of the grass hoppers.

 

 

One of the many benefits of fishing Wyoming is that we can use 4X tippet vs 6X in many other places.  4X gives you a ton of confidence when landing these large trout.  I’d say that it’s mainly due to less fishing pressure here.  Think about it, using 3 or 4 pound line vs 7 or 8 pound line is significant when fighting large fish.

 

 

The main flies I caught fish on were hares ears, zebra midges in black and red, and pheasant tails.  I don’t get overly complicated in my starting fly choices.  When streamer fishing, I had most of my success on a black bead head woolly bugger.  Clearly we all hear about TONS of fly patterns that are “necessary” to catch trout, but oddly enough I seem to catch fish consistently on pretty much all rivers with some of the same patterns.  

This fishing session was all about hitting the large deep pools.  This was the first place we located fish.  We nymphed these pools with great success.  It’s amazing the size of the fish we found in these pools, and their colors were spectacular.  We found rainbows, snake river cutthroats, cutbows, and browns in these waters.  

 

 

 

Some of my most fun fishing in these pools was swinging streamers.  There is something about a streamer bite that keeps me coming back for more.  The technique is difficult to explain in a paragraph, but we throw the streamer close to the opposite bank, allow the fly line to swing in the current, and start stripping the fly line slowly when the streamer gets close to the end of the drift.  Check out our YouTube channel for some video of this technique.  

 

 

Wyoming is a place that will now be on my list for annual visits, if not a couple of annual visits.  There is a ton of water, amazing scenery, and great people.  If you have any questions on locations or need some tips, let us know.  Until next time, tight lines my friends!  Jeff.