Epic Swing Day 4 - "Feels Like 18°" 30Apr19

The snow and cold came through as forecast, got ~3" of wet snow and lower temps to greet me in the morning, and it'll probably stay for another day. I took the chance to setup my tying station in the E1 as I was running low on some midges, and I understand some more effective patterns for this section as well now. The temp is okay at 28° but the "feels like" is much lower, and on the river it's even worse. I did get back to town to buy a new wading staff - sheesh, the beneficiary is the Platte River Fly Shop. Now I'm all modern like Jim & Scott. I took the selfie overlooking Pete's Draw and the river while I was out - the fly shop indicated I was in the right place and the looks of the downstream portions of the N Platte toward Casper are more off color (and have many fewer guide cars parked at the access points). I guess I'll get back to tying while I debate whether to hit the Miracle Mile section or just hang here at Grey Reef. A closed section due to spawning action opens up tomorrow so that might be my objective.

Grey Reef Is An Awesome Fishery... After returning from Casper I made lunch at camp and waited for the sun to shine (it never did) and the snow to melt (it did somewhat) and the 4 fishermen parked in the Pete’s Draw Outhouse Run near camp to vacate (they didn’t). I stopped waiting and stopped tying and headed out to new sections of the Grey Reef tailwater, despite the chill. I first went below the campground to an area with redds prevalent but not occupied (the spawn is over here)  but no real deep run where I seem to find the fish on this river. There is no bank structure here or other cover so the fish seem to be mid-stream and often deep in channels or deep runs. I did see one lady and caught her. I pretty quickly moved 1/4 mi ahead of the boys parked in prime and found a somewhat similar situation to Pete's deep channel run at the Trapper’s Route walk-in access. I had BB weight, a #18 mercury head FBPT and a #22 Jimi’s Axe (WYO only allows two flies vs COLO at 3). I caught ~20 fish in 2 hours! They equally hit on the beatis and the midge, and all were 18”-20.5”. The longest was a skinny 20.5” chrome but some of the many 19”ers were fatter and stronger. It was amazing again today here - it's a crazy good river - this section of the N Platte has a well-earned rep IMO and is reasonably close (5 hrs) to COLO - a trip among friends to Grey Reef is warranted, if not demanded. These are some of the nice fish, plus a requisite shot of my mug. I followed the starlings and squawks of the many waterfowl along the river to some of the best hatches I've ever encountered. Strange this is that these awesome fish I caught aplenty are probably only 3 years old; the river is that productive. I didn't fish right below the dam for the 30"ers but dreamt of them. Oh yeah, my guides froze closed and I needed to suck on them to clear 'em and even my reel was frozen solid with ice for a bit - WYO is not for the feint of heart - but I didn't need to deploy my new staff as the wading is fairly tame despite the big water.