For those that are more adventurous, April, May, June and October have great fishing, but require more fly fishing skills, more fly fishing knowledge and an ability to endure colder weather to be more successful.  These months are my personal favorite months because I learn more and use more skills to catch fewer total number of fish.  This time frame is better for fishers that want to learn and grow to be better fly fishers.  This type of fly fisher is not worried about catching lots of fish.  Rather, this type of fly fisher works on refining the skills and overall knowledge that leads to higher fish counts and bigger fish size.  Spring and fall fishing catch rate numbers are consistent with the fishing most every other place to fish.  But it is our dry fly fishing in July, August and September in the Bighorn Mountains that far exceed the average trout water.  So choose which type of fly fisherman you are and schedule your trip today.

We can schedule around some of the bad weather days if you plan on staying in the area 4 or 5 days.  We can usually get 2 to 3 days that will be good fishing days out of the 4 to 5 day trip.  That said, we do get great weather weeks in that time frame so it is a weather risk/fishing reward when the good days line up.

We do 80% of our guided fishing in July, August and September so call soon if you want to schedule a day on our best waters at our best times.  By the way if you love to throw streamers and catch big heavy fish the last week of May through June into the first two weeks of July during the high water run off time frame, we have great streamer fishing in our creeks.  We have several options to choose from so we can usually find good water with heavy fish that will pull hard in fast high water.  You have to be extra careful when wading, but listen to the guide and you will not kill yourself in these hazardous water conditions.

Thanks for fishing with us.  We look forward to helping you become a better fly fisherman than you currently are.

Roger

The bottom line is expect catching fewer fish, expect to spend a lot of time honing your nymphing skills, expect slower lethargic fighting, expect fish to have short feeding time frames, expect to freeze and most of all expect to have fun when few others are around.  We are lucky in this area because we have year round fishing.  One has only to go try their skills on open water to determine if they too can be a winter time fisherman.  If you layer up to stay warm, you can really enjoy our fishing year round.

Have fun and learn to be a much better fisherman than you currently are by cold water winter fishing as often as you can.

Tight lines and better understanding of all aspects of fly fishing.

Roger

My friend Tony and I fished for about 3 1/2 hours and the best fishing was about 4:30 to 5:00 PM  I landed 5 fish in that half hour.  Two of which were right at 18 inches one rainbow and one brown trout.   When the water is that cold, you lucky to catch just a few fish.  I was able to catch 10 fish total.  I was very pleased with the fishing, I could not ask for more out of cold water fishing day.

The flies of the day were Prince nymphs, Hare’s ear and the Vanilla bugger.

Winter fishing is tough, but if you approach it the right way, you can have great fun and not freeze you boots off.

Get out there and fish.

Roger

The true greatness of the river has come from the tail water and afterbay construction that gives the Bighorn it’s supreme consistency that is hard to rival anywhere on any other water inside the US.   Only a few great waters around the world completely rival the Bighorn on every aspect that makes the Bighorn great.  At least at a minimum when anyone looks at a given waters attributes on a year round basis, yes 365 days a year, the Bighorn is hard to beat.  It never seems to fail a fisherman with any good level of fishing skill.  Like all waters that are great, using the right fly at the right time makes all the difference, but the Bighorn is exceptional along fly selection also.  Once you figure out the 20 or so patterns needed for the water, you can catch fish all year round in most all weather conditions.  Stop by my shop on you way to the horn, and we will gladly explain the simplicity of the river and its fly selection.  All you need to do is fish the river enough to figure out the presentations of the needed flies and you too will be amazed at the Bighorn River’s greatness.

I am sorry if this sounds like a Bighorn love fest, but if you are a fly fisherman who truly enjoys fly fishing perfection, you to would sing the wonders of the Bighorn River.

Have fun and don’t bother counting.  Just enjoy all that is fly fishing.

Roger

I saw some small beatis and midges hatching and a few fish were rising to them but not very regularly.  I managed to catch a few fish and I decided right then that I was only going to dry fly fish the rest of the day.  It is a great treat to dry fly fish outside of the typical summer months.  As we all should know, the winter insects drop back to mainly midges and beatis.  When I get a shot at dry fly fishing outside the summer months, I take full advantage of the fun.

One of the many things that sets the Bighorn apart from other tail waters is the After-bay.  The After-bay area keeps the consistency of the river year round.  Both the water temperature and flow are two of keys to the success of the Horn.  Both of these greatly affect the quality and type of fishing that are available.  I tested the water temperature and found it was still about 48 degrees this late in the season, which is perfect for beatis to hatch in great numbers.  I knew I would have a great day if the clouds would stay over the water.  As I am very lucky and educated on what to look for in the weather and water conditions I found just what I wanted in the day for fishing.

We drifted down stream a short way near the old Suck hole area and came across a nice couple fishing the north bank across from the suck hole.  As we drifted by looking for heads I saw hundreds of heads sipping beatis.  It was only about a hundred feet down from the couple and they had not noticed the activity.  I drifted about two hundred yards down stream and cut across some of the feeding fish to get to shore.  This made the dry fly feeding activity up and down stream from us as far as I could see with out bothering others.  I tied on my favorite Yellowstone Fly Goods fly for this hatch (the CDC BWO) and began a fantastic fishing day.

I told my friends to switch to dry flies, but it took them a few minutes to decide to change.  I caught about 10 fish in the first 30 minutes and I missed about 10 more in that time.  John and Bill changed to dry flies and started catching a few on drys as well.  We fished the area for another 30 minutes catching fish every couple of minutes.  The sun came out and the dry fly fishing slowed down, but was not over by any means.  The guys wanted to move downstream to a different shelf to try more nymph fishing.  I could not believe they wanted to move, but I knew I would find more risers just about every there was slower water so we left.

As sure and the Horn is long, I found more rising fish all along the way to third island.  When we  arrived I walked to the slow water and found heads.  I made two casts and caught a rainbow that was about 18 inches.  The rainbow was sipping beatis about 35 feet across the side channel behind a small brush pile.  I made my cast a couple of feet above the fish and when my drift crossed his path perfectly, the bow had no choice other than to sip it down.  The take was perfectly beautiful.  The rainbow was completely surprised to have a hook in his mouth.  He fought with fantastic thrashing all over the place coming out of the water dancing across the surface followed by a nice run up stream then down.  The water being nice and cool gave the bow extra long energy to fight.

I like to fish 4x or heavier tippet I knew I could to apply heavy pressure to land him quickly.  I observed that beautiful fish in full detail and locked in into my memory for future recall.  I caught a bunch more fish over the next hour all on the same small dry CDC BWO.  I had to get home by 6 so we left the Horn by 4:30 p.m.  I was a few minutes late getting home, but it was all worth it.  This will be one of the great days to remember for a long time.  By taking the time to remember all the details, I am able to recall fond memories years down the road.  This is after all a great part of the many reasons we all go fishing.  If we don’t remember the details of each and every fish, why are we taking the time to fishing.

Tight lines, have fun and remember the days.  Some day that will be all you can do!

Roger

Have fun.  Roger

For the style of fishing we were doing, the warm bright sun was not a help.  The beatis hatch is always better with cloud cover or light snow fall.  We were fortunate to get some cloud cover that brought a few fish to the surface to sip for about an hour and we caught quite a few.  Many times you have to be quick for this type of fishing.  You should be set up and waiting for the action.  Quite often the hatch will start and end before people can change flies.  This is largely why people get frustrated and avoid fishing this way.

I caught a half dozen on size 20 beatis on 5 x tippet that set the day on a better pace.  The sun came back out and the beatis fishing slowed to a stop.  We went back to some deeper waters and threw streamers again, even though nymph fishing was clearly the best option for the weather for catching fish.  We wanted to go for the big 20 + fish on a streamer instead.  We worked hard and I caught a nice 19 inch rainbow just before dark that ended the day with a bigger fish.  The numbers don’t sound great, but I missed about 10 fish and landed about 10 fish total, so I thought a 50% day was great for such a bright sunny day.

The second day we went down the Madison to look at the water between Hebgan and Quake Lake.  The water looked great, but again the sun was shining and the wind was blowing hard.  Again not the best for beatis dry fly fishing.  There were also many fisherman that were thinking the same thing we were thinking.  Mike knew we had other options, so he took me down river to a couple of bridges that everyone fishes.  The difference was there were no people fishing so we looked for heads again.

We found the heads we were looking for and methodically picked them off one by one.  I don’t remember exact numbers, but my percentage of landed to missed ration was much higher somewhere around 70%.  I landed a couple of bigger fish up to about 17 inches that were thick, healthy and beautiful.  The ultimate fun we were going for was in the skills we used to catch the fish.  A light flexible rod, light tippet, small dry flies, stalking the fish to within 9 feet some times, a perfect presentation and ultimately a skillful and quick fight on light tippet to limit the stress on the fish were some of the skills we were honing.

I did not take any photos the entire time I spent in West Yellowstone.  I was having too much fun to take time for a photo.  All the photos I took, I took with my mind.  I took the entire two days and just turned on the recorder inside my head.  I locked many memories in my thoughts for the future use and remembering.  I will look back on this time when I’m 80 and smile.

Needless to say, My time in West Yellowstone was fantastic.  Along with Mike, I was lucky enough to talk with John Juracek for the second time in the last year.  John is an exceptional photographer and writer.  Watch for his name under fantastic photos and great articles.  John also happens to be the best fly fisherman I have ever fished with when it comes to the complete package angler.

I have fished with a over a thousand good to very good fisherman and watched thousands more in efforts to learn everything I can to become a great fly fisherman.  All of these people have exceptional skills for some of the techniques and or general knowledge of aspects of fly fishing.  But of all the people I have watched and fished with over the past ten years, I have never seen anyone as complete as John.  He has fantastic skills with both hands and he has incredible knowledge in seemingly every aspect of fly fishing and stream management.  On top of all that he is just a great person.  I hope to fish with him again sometime soon.  When I get the chance, I hope to learn much more from him.

As if this was not a great enough trip, I also got meet Craig Mathews at his Blue Ribbon Fly Shop and that was a great treat for me.  I feel especially lucky whenever I get a chance to meet exceptionally knowledgeable and skillful fly fisherman but when he is a great businessmen, that just is the toppings.  The quality of his experience and depth of his knowledge shows through in his 32 years business in West Yellowstone along with his books, photos and videos.  If you get the time to experience West Yellowstone or any event that these guys show up at, glean any information you can get from them.  Their information will help your fishing where ever you go.

Thanks for indulging my fantasy camp trip to West Yellowstone.

Tight lines and fun fishing.

Roger

P.S. On the way home to Sheridan, I stopped and fished the Yellowstone River for about an hour, but there were no beatis hatching again.  I drove out of the park and fished the North Fork of the Shoshoni in a couple of places along the way.  I stopped in Cody and caught a few nice cutthroats on the same small beatis dry fly.  I thought to finish off I would hurry over to Shell Canyon and fish Shell Creek.  It was getting dark so I tied on my favorite bugger pattern and caught a couple small browns and rainbows.  What a way to finish my short vacation.

Henry and I met with Greg Mueller from the Platte River Fly Shop in Casper.  The Platte River guys are a great bunch of Guides.  They float hard and fish hard for great quality fish.  We floated through town and caught some good quality fish.  The numbers of fish are greater out of town towards the reef, but we were expecting 50 mile per hour winds so we hoped the city would shield us a bit.  Our in town float paid off because we received little wind and the experience was totally new to me.  I think it is extra cool to catch fish inside any town limits.  These types of waters are often overlooked.  The thing to remember is fish numbers are not the goal.  Fish quality is what I look to achieve.  Here are a few photos to show some of the fun. Check out the wind sock in the background of the bottom photo.  The wind was blowing strong, but our in town option paid off big to keep us out of the wind.  Henry was able to throw a size 16 dry fly to some gulping fish like the one he is holding while the guide was keeping us in position with the ores.    Thanks Greg for a great day with fat rainbows.

The fishing has slowed down some.  Most waters are getting cold over night making mornings slow and afternoons the time to be on the water.  October is looking to be a great month for finishing up with some great days still to be had.  We are expecting a few colder days, but as a whole, the weather men are saying we are going to be warm all month into November.  That is great news for me.  I love fishing this time of the year.   Number go down, Skills go up and satisfaction of accomplishment abounds.

The lakes and reservoirs are turning on for their fall fishing.  Browns are starting spawning behavior with the colder waters.  The last few browns I saw on the 29 and 30 of September were beautiful.

Have fun.  And fish this October.

Roger

We have been enjoying good fishing the past few weeks.  The full moon phase has been a slight issue for some of the trips, but in general most people have had good days depending on location.  The mountain is fishing great.  The mountain waters are cold in the 40′s in the morning and heating up through the afternoon.  Some waters are getting back to the low 50′s by afternoon.  The hatches are smaller now that the water is chilled off.  Small beatis and caddis are the general answer on the North Tongue.  The beatles, ants and hoppers are working on hotter days.

The canyon waters are nymphing good and streamers are catching some bigger fish.  The canyon waters are colder and stay colder due to the lack of sun light reaching the water.  The fish are eating,  but numbers are slowing.  Most are still catching 10 to 20 fish per outing.  The Browns are staging and getting ready for spawning in most areas of the mountains.  Depending on the water temperature this fall, the lower waters will see the Browns spawn in early October.

As always the lakes and reservoirs are starting to come back and will get better through september and into October.  The still waters will fish better and better until they freeze over for the winter.   Thanks for stopping by.

I will ad more later.

Roger