Guided fly fishing in Wyoming is anchored by one float river and one national park, and they could not be more different. The Snake through Jackson Hole is a fast, braided, cottonwood-lined float for native fine-spotted cutthroat with the Tetons standing over it. The rivers of Yellowstone, the Firehole, Gibbon, and Lamar, are walk-wade only, no boats, fished on foot among geysers and bison with a guide who holds a park permit. Add the North Platte's tailwater and its Salmonfly freestone reaches, and the Green below Fontenelle, and you have a state where the guided day depends entirely on which corner you are standing in.
The Snake through Jackson Hole
The Snake is Wyoming's float. Guides run it from the park down to Alpine in sections: the reach inside Grand Teton National Park from Pacific Creek, where floating requires a National Park Service permit; the Moose to South Park water that is the standard Jackson Hole day; and the lower river from Hoback Junction to Alpine, which is more accessible by road and fishes as well. The river braids and changes channels every spring, so a guide's current knowledge of which channel carries the water matters more here than almost anywhere.
The season is compressed. Runoff runs late, often into July, and the best fishing is July through September when the cutthroat eat big attractor dries, Golden Stones, and hoppers off the banks. Guides fish it from the boat with foam flies and short casts, and the pace is fast. Fall brings Blue-Winged Olives and lower, clearer water.
The North Platte
The North Platte is the state's other major guided river and has two personalities. The Miracle Mile below Pathfinder Dam is a tailwater fished on foot from a rough access road out of Alcova, with large browns and rainbows and reliable Blue-Winged Olive and midge fishing in the shoulder seasons. Upstream, around Saratoga and toward the Encampment country in the Sierra Madre, the river is a freestone with a Salmonfly hatch in June and July that guides plan whole seasons around, followed by Golden Stones, PMDs, and hoppers. Saratoga floats are the standard guided day on the freestone; the Mile is a wading day.
Yellowstone's rivers, on foot
Inside Yellowstone National Park no boats are allowed on the rivers, so every guided day is a walk-wade day, and the guide must hold a park commercial permit. The Firehole is a thermally warmed spring creek that fishes best in the cool months, early in the park season and again in fall, when the geyser water is a help rather than a hindrance; caddis and Blue-Winged Olives are the hatches. The Gibbon above its falls holds brook trout and grayling in meadow water. The Lamar in its valley is a summer cutthroat river, dry-fly water from July when it clears, fished with hoppers and attractors under a sky full of bison. Yellowstone issues its own fishing permit, separate from a Wyoming license, and the park's rules on gear and native fish are its own. Check with the park before you go.
Cody country and the Green
The Shoshone below Buffalo Bill Dam is a canyon tailwater on the edge of Cody, fished from pullouts along the highway with caddis, PMDs, and Golden Stones in early summer, and the North Fork above town is a freestone in a volcanic canyon on the road to Yellowstone's east entrance. The Green below Fontenelle Dam is a tailwater in the sagebrush of Sweetwater County, waded from gravel bars near the dam and along the highway toward La Barge, with far less pressure than the Utah Green downstream. The New Fork out of Pinedale is Wind River Range freestone water for cutthroat and browns, floated or waded in summer.
The seasonal shape
Wyoming's season starts later and ends earlier than Montana's or Utah's. Spring is tailwater time on the Miracle Mile, the Shoshone, and the Green below Fontenelle. The Firehole is where the park season starts once Yellowstone opens to fishing; check the park for the date. Runoff holds the Snake and the freestone North Platte into late June or July. July through September is the main event everywhere. October is Blue-Winged Olives and streamers, and by November most guides have put the boats away.
What is distinctive about Wyoming guiding
The park changes everything. A guide who works Yellowstone is working under a federal permit, without a boat, in bear country, with rules that differ from the state's, and that is a different skill set from rowing the Snake. Wyoming licenses outfitters and professional guides through a state board, and Snake River guides carry National Park Service permits for the water inside Grand Teton on top of it. Buy your own Wyoming fishing license from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and check with them for current rules; buy the separate Yellowstone permit from the park. For every Wyoming river on the site, see fishing in Wyoming.