A Day on The Green River, at Green River Lakes

We have been blessed to have visited so many beautiful places. Some are where the wild things are and some are in crowded cities, but all have one thing in common. Each place has given us, a moment of peace.

Of all these my favorite place is up the Green River, a place called the Green River Lakes. Here the Green River pours out of its source, Lower Green River Lake, starting its long and sinuous journey to the Colorado River, where their waters combine before trying to reach the sea.

Renita and I live one hundred and twenty miles from this place and so we decided to spend a night there. Unfortunately rain moved in and so our trip became a one day picnic as flash flood warnings had been posted.

The trip over was about three hours, of which the last eleven miles took an hour of that time. Rocks, bumps and even a little mud slowed us to a crawl as we followed the river upstream. Making the last turn the rain increased and hid the view of the beautiful alpine valley.

Driving downstream we found a nice pullover and stopped to eat lunch. The rain became a few scattered drops, for a little while anyway, and so I forgot about lunch as fish were feeding on top of the deep but still water. I cast a stimulator and then switched to a mosquito as the fish fed next to my fly but refused my offerings.

Finally, I tried on a fly called a parachute and the fish attacked it like me going after a plate of beignets,(Sorry but I made some this morning). Still I missed fish after fish, until I finally succeeded in setting the hook. It fought hard in the deep water, before I was finally able to reach down and gently lift it up. It wasn’t a trout at all but instead a mountain whitefish!

Now I really don’t care what I catch and soon I caught another, releasing both unharmed. They have a tiny mouth and so they are hard to hook. Meanwhile the rain stopped for a bit and gave us a partial glimpse of Square Top Mountain and the Wind Rivers.

More dark clouds threatened and so we cut our visit short. We were due to meet Matt and Patty at their house for dinner, not very far away. There we talked about our day and enjoyed a great meal of shrimp alfredo, (Patty is an excellent chef). Already we both want to return for a few days, now if the weather will only clear up!