Only one car was parked in the famed North Platte River’s Gray Reef fishing access on a frigid day in early January. No trucks hauling trailers with drift boats lined up at the boat ramp. No guides back rowed through holes and no wade anglers muttered obscenities under their breaths, an unusual sight for a river visited by thousands of anglers a year.
The lone angler, Tony Zurface, frequently comes from Colorado to Casper as a traveling salesperson and stops to fish the Platte. He was throwing treble-hooked lures with a spinning rod that day. Some days he fly fishes.
If Game and Fish institutes new proposed regulations on the Platte, anglers like Zurface will have to put away those treble hooks — something he says he’s fine with. He’s seen the pressure put on the Platte during peak season. And plenty of other states already have similar restrictions.
The proposed rules also include limiting boats on a portion of the Miracle Mile, requiring barbless hooks between Kortes Dam and Highway 220 and creating an additional spawning closure. They’re Game and Fish’s answer to the subtle curse of fishing’s exponential growth on the river: Fish are dying after being caught and released.
Now Game and Fish wants the public’s help deciding whether or not enough anglers are willing to support those changes for the health and longevity of the fish they flock to catch.
A problem on a popular river
The Gray Reef section of the North Platte River has long drawn anglers from around the region. Not historically home to trout, a series of dams constructed to facilitate irrigation, help with flood protection and generate electricity led to an ideal trout fishery with water flowing at a consistent temperature year-round, free of ice in the winter and cooler than most free-flowing rivers in the summer.
But as guiding became more popular, and social media led to increased attention, the river and its trout became victims of their own success.
Angler numbers exploded from around 1,000 boats on the Gray Reef section of the river and none on the Miracle Mile in 2001 to almost 6,500 boats in 2022 between the two sections of water.
And the slow simmer of increased pressure reached a boiling point last year when Game and Fish released a study showing that about a quarter of the fish in the North Platte River could die of injuries sustained from fishing hooks.
After that initial shock ebbed, Game and Fish sent a survey to about 84,000 people including everyone in southeast Wyoming who owns an annual or lifetime fishing license and every nonresident who had purchased a Wyoming fish license within the last five years with a valid email address on file. Almost 5,000 people responded.
The survey asked a detailed series of questions about how and where people fished and their opinions about possible regulatory changes. It zeroed in on anglers who targeted the most popular sections of the Platte along with two reservoirs fed by the river: Seminoe and Pathfinder.
Among most responses, Matt Hahn, Game and Fish’s Casper region fisheries supervisor, found signs of willingness to change.
More than half of the people who fish the Miracle Mile, a stretch of water above Pathfinder Reservoir sometimes up to 15 miles long, supported some kind of restriction on boats. The current use numbers are staggering. In 2009, Game and Fish surveyed the river eight days a month throughout the popular fishing season and didn’t see a single boat. In 2021, a timelapse camera showed more than 2,200 boats in a year.
So managers are proposing allowing boats on the bulk of the river but restricting them on a less than 2 mile stretch above Seminoe Road bridge to give anglers — and fish — a bit of a break.
The department is also recommending artificial flies only — so no bait or lures — on the Fremont Canyon and Gray Reef stretches, and only barbless hooks from the Miracle Mile down past Gray Reef. Barbs help hooks stay in a fish’s mouth longer to improve odds of landing the creature, but can easily create tears and holes during extraction, as well as lead to more time out of the water.
Hahn worries that doing nothing will result in a high enough fish mortality that Game and Fish will have to resume stocking fish in a river that has high natural reproduction, essentially resigning itself to stocking fish for people to catch and release until they die.
Time for a change
The proposals, Hahn hopes, will be socially acceptable but still do enough to save the fishery.
Blake Jackson, co-owner of the Ugly Bug Fly Shop and Crazy Rainbow Fly Fishing, supports the changes, and doesn’t anticipate much pushback. But do they go far enough to protect the fishery?
“Unfortunately, like many things, there isn’t one specific thing to point to. I think pressure is an aspect. I think methods used is an aspect. I think sediment plays an issue because it consolidates pressure in certain locations and leads to more fish being caught in one place,” he said. “There are multiple things that can be done to help, and these changes can lead to improvement.”
Jackson has been a guide on the Platte for more than 20 years, and has witnessed the surge in pressure, particularly among commercial guides. It’s why he testified recently before the Wyoming Legislature asking lawmakers to support a bill limiting the number of commercial outfitters on rivers. Limiting guides would not only reduce pressure on the struggling fish but would also ease congestion on increasingly crowded rivers like the Platte, Bighorn and Green.
“We can’t take advantage of our natural resources like this anymore. It would be like having an elk hunting season with no regulations — chances are we would kill way too many elk,” he said. “We’re asking for help with out-of-state guides coming in and not paying into the system. We play by the rules and pay our taxes and support Wyoming families and have employees. We’re asking for a level playing field.”
If a ban on hook barbs passes, the North Platte in the Casper region would be the first river in Wyoming outside of Yellowstone National Park to require barbless hooks, though it’s a common practice in many other states. It’s a step Hahn said is necessary not only to protect the fishery today, but for years to come.
Weigh in
The Casper open house will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Casper Regional Game and Fish Office, 3030 Energy Lane. The Rawlins open house will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Jeffrey Memorial Community Center, 315 W. Pine St.
I am in agreement with the proposed regulations. It seems these rules should also be applied to sections of the Green River and the Bighorn River. They are exhibiting some of the same negative consequences as the Platte.
My posting on Feb 6, 2025 needs a correction. I was referring to the miracle mile being floated from the upper area down river to Chalk Bluffs, not Gray Reef.
I have fished the Miracle mile since 1965 with my father and since he has passed away. It was always a fantastic experience until the commercial guided fishing took over the river from the upper paved camping area down river to gray reef. Many times during the prime fishing season I saw as many as 25 commercial boats with 2 fishing from each. A few years of this and it became almost impossible to catch a fish and difficult to dodge all the boat traffic. As a result I have not fished there for the past 8 years and I personally know other fishermen who avoid it also. Stop the commercial fishing and it will return to a Miracle again, not the miracle it is now, of if you can catch a fish.
Why not just raise the cost of licenses for out of state fishermen and rase the price for out of state guides.
There is a bill HB0204 – Nonresident fishing license fee increase. https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2025/HB0204
This was passed in the Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee (aka TRW) by a 9-0 vote. It has been placed on general file. We’ll see if it gets heard on the House floor. The same bill last year did not pass the required introduction vote last year because of Freedom Caucus opposition. We’ll see how they vote this year.
There is no permitting process for resident or nonresident guides therefore no fees to increase. A bill has been worked on for several years, but the detail of governance and enforcement have been controversial.
People, its 2025 and way past time to reduce…NO…eliminate Outfitting and Guiding. These folks have long leveraged our fish and wildlife for pennies to the dollar and it’s high time that the citizenry takes priority. The legislature can clean up our overcrowding of the resources and the injured/dead fish in one quick swoop.
I support the elimination of barbless hooks but I do not support the elimination of the use of fishing lures. This discriminates against those that do not possess the skills and/or financial resources to fly fish. Fly fishing has become an elitist activity, effectively limiting and excluding many from this form of fishing due to the exorbitant cost of fly fishing tackle. I’m disappointed that WGFD ignored the real elephant in the room in its recommendations for modifications of fishing regulations. There are simply too many fly fishermen on the river due to the explosion in the numbers of commercial guides and outfitters. It’s time to drastically reduce the number of commercial fly fishing guides and outfitters float fishing the North Platte. They have ruined the experience of fishing the North Platte, especially the Miracle Mile and below Grey Reef!
Would you be opposed to single barbless hooks on the lures?
No, not at all. I also believe that eliminating the use of lures also discriminates against age classes of anglers, particularly young children. How many kinds between say the age of 5 and 12 have the skills, knowledge and equipment to fly fish? You can bet that all would have the skills to cast a lure on a spinning rod!
I fished the Kenai River – flies only, catch and release only for Rainbows. Big fish but had been caught and released so many times that their jaws were misshapen. Wonder if that will be case here.
Finally fishing pressure gets attention however it needs addressed statewide for the protection of our fish! Catch & release does kill fish from improperly handling and stress during high temps! Speak up and support our finned fiends!!
I think barbless hooks are needed. I also think that we should be able To use artificial lures with barbless hooks, not all of us fly fish
I fish the Miracle Mile 3-4 times a year. I live in AR in the winter and MN during the summer. I have also fished the Bighorn in Thermopolis for 23 years. I fully support your recommendations for the North Platte to improve the fishing environment for the fish and Anglers.
Another cause of fish mortality is an unscrupulous angler playing them to the point of exhaustion before bringing them in and then releasing them. Anglers often boast of epic battles with these fish before they hit the net. They are not doing them any favors.
Good data gathered by the Casper professional fisheries biologists to support their recommendations, and sharing the info with the public. Thumbs up.
I definitely support barbless hooks and less boat traffic.
A friend and I are coming to Casper and Thermopolis in early May of 2025. After retiring, one of us a teacher and the other a clock repairman, neither of us is rich, as some of the previous posts suggest about fly fishermen (most of our equipment is handmade or second hand). We are both very concerned about conserving Wyoming fisheries for the enjoyment of future generations. Besides cancelling our trip (a once-in-a-lifetime, dream come true experience) and using barbless hooks, are there any other suggestions for us, while we are there, that will help to preserve “the miracle”? Sincere thanks for your suggestions!