West '05 Trip - Day 1

Posted: 2006-01-10
By: Randy Cochran

First, let me tell you a little about this trip in general before delving into the day-to-day details of it.

3 weeks in July and August of 2004 saw me traveling to Montana for the first time in my relatively short life to attend the Yellowstone Outfitters and Guide Academy guide school in Emigrant, MT. Fishing and learning on storied Western waters opened my eyes to the vast opportunities there; as soon as my time there was done, I made it a point to get back every year.

My 2005 trip was originally slated to be 30 days, but ended up being 50 somewhere along in the planning stages. After all, I wanted to fish South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska. How would I do all that in only 30 days? I'm sure it'd be possible, but I wanted to get a good feel for these states and felt I wouldn't be able to do that with only 4 days or so allotted to each. As my budget grew, I decided to cut out states - and license costs - and whittled the list down to 4: Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. After that, I came up with a 40-50 day total for the time I'd spend fishing and driving.

With a plan and money saved up, I headed out on August 26th.

I arrived in Montana (Miles City, to be precise) on the 27th. Fatigue got the best of me, so I decided to stay in a Super 8 there until the following day, when I would start out towards my day 1 destination: The Bighorn River.

The drive out from Miles City was enjoyable enough, with several Antelope spotted along the freeway. A leisurely morning, trips to the supermarket and a flyshop in Ft. Smith delayed my arrival at the river until 12pm. Lunch and gearing up took me until 1:30, when I finally made the river's edge just in time for winds to pick up to 40 mph or so, along with sheets of rain to soak my bones.

Slightly defeated, I walked back to the car to wait it out, spooking a grouse from the grassy trailside on the way.

I believe there's an old adage that goes something like "if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes." Well, it took slightly longer than 15 minutes, but when the weather did cooperate, it really cooperated. The wind died down to dead calm, the rain went bye-bye and the river came alive with the sun still behind heavy clouds. Rises by the thousands perforated the surface. A mixed hatch of black caddis, BWOs and midges. Surely I wouldn't have to search too hard for an acceptable pattern.

There's another adage, or actually phrase, that says "your ass has been handed to you." That pretty much sums it up. I tried throwing everything in my box to no avail, save for one hit that I missed due to a downstream drift and a too-quick stripset. The angle of the sun made it nearly impossible to see any fly (especially a black CDC caddis dry) under a certain size, and the size of the naturals on or over the water was under that certain size by a good amount. In short, I was doomed to simply enjoy the Bighorn, fish or no. Not a bad way to spend a day anyway.