Fly Fishing Green River - Headwaters

Overview

The upper Green River below Green River Lakes winds through meadow and pine-forest country at the foot of Wyoming’s Wind River Range. Granite peaks frame a freestone channel of pools, runs and riffles. Brook, cutthroat and rainbow trout inhabit this high-country water, where grassy cutbanks and overhanging branches create distinct feeding lanes.

High-Country Presentations

Melting snow changes the river’s depth, clarity and current. Sheltered eddies and the softer seam beside a run offer different holding water from the faster channel. Watch a particular lie before casting, and adjust a nymph’s weight and depth to keep the fly in that lane.

Midges, blue-winged olives, caddis and small stoneflies provide fly choices. Hoppers, beetles and ants add options along grassy banks in late summer. A Parachute Adams or Purple Haze can cover surface feeding, while a pheasant tail or zebra midge offers a subsurface alternative. A dry-dropper can combine the two presentations where the current and feeding behavior suit that approach.

The contrast between alpine peaks, forested banks and open meadow bends defines this section. Its smaller pieces of holding water reward precise casts and observation rather than a hurried search through the whole channel.