The boys and I decided this year to take a flow trip down the infamous Green River for fly fishing. We left Friday afternoon and after getting some supplies we reached our destination of Dutch John Resort. Where when we pulled up we found it locked up. After calling the after hours number, they came to the front of the store and let us in. We were planning on having dinner at the cafe since it was part of our package and luckily they hadn't turned the grills off. They took our order to go and we got our key to the "Cabin Lite". As we waited two more customers showed up to check in and get dinner as well so they let us stay and eat our dinner in the cafe. We finished up and went to our cabin. The cabin was okay, not what we expected for a "resort". The distinction of "Cabin Lite" means lite on everything it had 4 walls and a ceiling, a small fridge and microwave. The heater was a small plug in space heater that we had to find a working outlet to run it. The shower and bathroom was across the yard and the facilities left a lot to be desired, they were filthy! Filthy enough we were skeptical to even use the facilities. They did not clean them and when we woke up we decided to shower when we got home later that night they were that bad. We were hoping that it wasn't a sign of our entire trip.
After checking into our "cabin" we went fishing on Flaming Gorge at Cedar Springs recreation area. We spent the rest of the evening fishing from the bank getting a couple strikes but nothing to the bank. The evening was perfect and the sunset was superb. We went back to the cabin and played pitch until early morning. The alarm came quick.
Saturday morning we met up with our guides at the station. Rod and Spencer, Rod we had run with before a number of years ago, Spencer was our first time with him. We loaded and got on our way. 8:30 am we were on the river, Jim and Parker with Spencer and Rogan and I with Rod. Jim and Rogan had the nose of each boat. Spencer had his boat down stream quickly and Rod banked us while he set up our rigs. We started casting about 9:00 am the other boat stayed a little ways ahead for most of the morning. We fished until 1:00 pm and then stopped and had lunch together. Lunch was a good cheeseburger on the grill and some of Rod's pickled jalapeno's.
The morning stretch landed us probably 30 fish, browns and rainbows. Rogan landing landing more than me. Parker and Jim and had about the same success with Parker leading the count on their boat. The fishing was very difficult with winds sustained at around 15-20 mph all morning and gust up to 30 mph. We had a difficult time getting our lines to lay down where we wanted them to. We also had a few tangles due to the wind I had more than my fair share of tangles that's for sure. We persisted with the help of our guides and still put a good number in the boats. The water was stained for the most part and nothing was on top of the water. Making it a nymph kind of day. Watching strike indicators and hearing Rod holler out "Set it, set it, set it" and then say "Well I guess we didn't want that one anyway" was the words of the day......LOL. Meaning we could have had a number more in the boat. Oh well we were having fun!!
After lunch we covered ground a little faster. The upper stretch has more holes than the lower section. Rod would run through a section of the river as long as we had hits or caught something. Then he would move to the next hole. The river was loaded with boats so we had to wait for holes to open up at times. The lower half was fun and bigger fish were being landed. Jim caught the catch of the day with a 21 inch brown trout weighting in at 3 lbs. He was happy but I guess not nearly as happy as Spencer their guide. He moved them to the bank and seen the big brown trout roll and jumped out of the boat grabbing both rod and net making sure this fish was landed. Parker and Jim said it was quite the site. Rogan caught the fish of the day on our boat with a nice 19 inch 3 lb rainbow trout.
We docked at Little Hole seven miles down stream from where stated that morning at 4:00 pm. We were pretty tired from standing casting and fighting the wind all day but still happy for the adventure we had. We parted our ways with our guides at the station and loaded up the mule and made our way home talking about our day and sharing stories of each boats catches. Spencer was a good guide for the boys, Rod was good for us as well, however he was worn out by the end of the day. We won't be doing the Dutch John Resort again it was not worth the money we spent.
