Green River Lakes to Warren Bridge
The Green rises in the Wind River Range and leaves Green River Lakes beneath Squaretop Mountain, about 52 miles north of Pinedale at the end of the Green River Lakes road. From the lakes down through Kendall Valley the river runs small and clear through a mix of national forest, BLM and private ranch land, with pull-offs along the gravel road and a launch where the pavement ends at Kendall Valley. This upper reach is where the cutthroat are most common, and at low water it is canoe, kayak and wading water rather than drift boat water.
Warren Bridge
Warren Bridge, where US 191 crosses the Green north of Daniel, is the public heart of the river. BLM Road 5201 leaves the highway just north of the bridge and follows the river upstream past a dozen riverside access sites and camps, roughly nine miles of walk-in water with boat ramps at several of the sites. This is the best public wading on the entire Green in Wyoming. Runoff usually clears by late June, and the river fishes best once flows drop into the 200 to 600 cfs range at the Warren Bridge gauge; drift boats need more water than that and scrape at late summer levels.
Downstream of the bridge the river is mostly private ranch land to Daniel and beyond, floated by guides and taken out at the Daniel Fish Hatchery access off Pape Road. The Warren Bridge to Daniel water carries a flies-and-lures-only rule.
Below Daniel and the Fontenelle tailwater
Below Daniel the Green picks up the New Fork and runs south past Big Piney and La Barge through ranch country with little public bank access, then into Fontenelle Reservoir. The tailwater below Fontenelle Dam, about 70 miles south of Pinedale, is a different fishery with its own regulations and its own USGS gauge (09211200, Green River below Fontenelle Reservoir), running through Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge with big browns, cutthroat and a fall kokanee run. This page tracks the upper river at Warren Bridge, not the Fontenelle releases.
Brown Trout
Browns hold the undercut banks and deeper runs from the Warren Bridge water down through the ranch stretches and are the fish the guides target. The late June and July window brings the Gray Drake and stonefly hatches the upper Green is known for, caddis come off most summer evenings, and by late summer it is hoppers and ants along the grassy cutbanks. Fall streamer fishing for pre-spawn browns runs into October, when kokanee that migrate up from Fontenelle Reservoir bring the trout in behind them.
Rainbow and cutthroat trout
Rainbows share the Warren Bridge water with the browns and rise readily to the same drakes, PMDs and caddis. Colorado River cutthroat, the river's native trout, become a larger share of the catch the farther upstream you go toward Green River Lakes, and cut-bow hybrids and mountain whitefish are common throughout. Late summer Tricos and fall Blue-Winged Olives are the technical sight-fishing hatches on the flats.
Season and regulations
The upper Green is a runoff river. It typically fishes from mid May, when the Green clears earlier than most of the region's freestones, blows out from late May into June, and fishes best from late June through October. Wyoming Game and Fish has posted voluntary afternoon closures on the Pinedale-area rivers in hot, low-water spells, so check its notices in August. Local sources put comfortable wading at Warren Bridge between about 150 and 600 cfs, with 200 to 400 cfs the sweet spot, and this page uses 200 to 600 cfs as the in-range window for the Warren Bridge gauge. That is the wading range; floats are better at 400 to 700 cfs.
Area 4 stream regulations apply: the statewide stream limit of 3 trout, and from Warren Bridge downstream to Swain's (Wood's) Bridge on Sublette County Road 23-179 fishing is by artificial flies and lures only. Green River Lakes have their own limits. Confirm the current Wyoming Game and Fish regulations for Area 4 before you fish.