Day Three: Bighorn River...Dennis Fischer SEES fish

For our third and final day on the Bighorn Jon and I had the pleasure of fishing with Dennis Fischer.  Dennis has guided on the Bighorn for many years and there are no tricks that he does not have at his disposal.  As I mentioned in an earlier post Dennis was the guy who showed me the technique of sight fishing on the Bighorn and he again treated us to this special version of nymph fishing today.

Starting out at Three Mile Dennis rowed us across the channel and up stream a little ways.  We de-boated and began stalking fish in the shallow runs.  Almost immediately Dennis spotted fish and we began casting to them.



The fish were a bit fussy at first but we eventually began taking them for rides on our 5 and 6 weights.  After catching several nice browns and rainbows we re-boated and drifted down to a second run (one that we'd fished the day before with some success).








At this second run we put a real asswhipping on them, probably hooking 10-12 fish and several over 20".  In fact we're pretty sure tghat we caught on 20" rainbow twice (well actually I hooked it and had it one for 100 yards and the Jon eventually landed it 10 minutes later).  The weather was postcard perfect...mid 70's, blue skies and no humidity.

From the point things started slowing down and the rest of the day was slower than any stretch we'd experienced.  Wish we could have finished with a bang, but hey...that's fishing.  It was great spending the day with Dennis, whom I consider to be a old friend now.  He is truly a unique guide...nobody SEES fish like Dennis.  Take care my friend.

By 5:00PM we had arrived at the Bighorn Access and after a quick pack job and goodbyes to Dennis, Jon and I hit the road, headed for Cody, WY.

I was nervous about the first 50 miles of the drive as we too a road through a pretty desolate section on Montana- all of it through Crow Indian Reservation.  In fact nearly 20 miles of this route were on gravel roads...good gravel (as Dave's wife, Jan, said)...but gravel nonetheless.  No radios stations, no cell service, no stores....just wheat farms, cattle ranches and prairie.   Breakdown out here and you are royally hosed.  But Lady Luck smiled down upon us and we whipped right through this section enjoying some spectacular sights along the way.


By 8:00PM we arrived in Cody and were greeted by traffic and overflow tourists and what looked like Daytona Bike Week...motorcycles everywhere.  Fortunately, they were well behaved last night and we slept well.  All in all, another great day in our Western Fly Fishing Adventure.