Floated the N Platte above Saratoga WY a couple weekends ago and it was awesome. The river is bigger than it has been in recent years and still tons on snow in the high country. It was like hitting the lottery, as you just can't tell what fishing will be like during runoff. The high water/runoff has done wonders for the health of the fish, fat and strong. The slot limit has done wonders to keep this a blue ribbon fishing river also.
The
owns and rainbows were chasing like crazy. Most fish were 15" to 19" with the biggest being a 22" Brown. Big and heavy was the order of the day. We were bank banging with tan wooly buggers with a heavy torpedo head on them to get them down quick. I had never used that heavy of a bugger before, but it was great fun. Some guys were tying on a nymph at the end but that just took extra time. It was fishing at 50mph. No time for false casting or long casting, just a lot of little rolling casts to pull the fish off the cut banks. Judging by the stories at the end of the day it was pretty even on the number caught either with or without a nymph. The guides were all tipped handsomely so verification was all but impossible.
If you need any wooly buggers, wait another month and walk the banks, we left a bunch of them in the willows. If you aren't losing your flies your aren't getting close enough!
This would normally be kind of late for floating up high but I would guess that we still have a couple more weeks. Can't wait to go back, it should be mostly cleared up now.