Fishing Reports Feeds From Bigskyflyfishers.com http://bigskyflyfishers.com/ Fishing Reports Feeds From Bigskyflyfishers.com en-us Fri, 18 May 2012 10:32:09 GMT http://www.bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports/rss UCMS <![CDATA[Bighorn River - December 1st, 2009]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#315 Recorded:  Windy45 ° F Fishing: Good

The river fished well at times, but not as predictable as it can be for this time of year.  I continue to pump worms, midges, and baetis out of the fish, but seem to see very limited rising due to the windy conditions.  I'm seeing plenty of clean gravel, and most fish are sticking to the areas surrounding the spawning activity, but I'm not catching as many fish on scuds and soft hackles as you'd expect. 

Streamer fishing was not as good as it has been, but still getting good action.

I'd rate the boat traffic as a 3




]]> Tue, 1 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#315 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - January 8th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#329 Recorded:  Frigid20 ° F Fishing: Good

O.K., I'll admit it.  I haven't been out fishing myself, so this is a second handed report.  The river's looking clean, and very user friendly.  The Brown's spawn is coming to an end, and fish seem to be more into eating midges than scuds.  The water's cold enough so that you'll want to be out primarily in the middle of the day for the best fishing, then you're gonna get cold fast.  They're still chasing the streamer, so that can be a nice diversion in between nymphing the holes.

I'll give a first handed report as soon as I finish hunting geese, and replenishing my supply of tying feathers.



]]> Fri, 8 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#329 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - March 1st, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#378 Recorded:  Frigid40 ° F Fishing: Good

Yesterday was a long awaited day of fishing for me.  The river traffic was relatively low.  I floated the 3 mile-Bighorn stretch of the Bighorn River, and saw 5-7 other boats.  The water temp is cold, in the upper 30's.  I saw the expected bug life, midges (occassionally in clusters), and a handful of baetis duns in the afternoon.  I pumped some fish to find worms, sowbugs, and hundreds of tiny cream midges. 
The nymphing I would decribe as O.K.  We were able to catch some fish everywhere we tried, and on a wide variety of nymph patterns, but had to work fairly hard for them.  I streamer fished my behind off to move just a few fish.  The best part of the day for me was the midge fishing in the morning.  I was able to get on a pod of eager fish, while throwing a simple midge single dry fly with a tuft of CDC pointing upwards (what's called the "Smokejumper").  It's easy to see, and seamed to be all I needed to catch the risers I could approach.
We had a good time, and enjoyed some sunshine and a nice variety of successful fishing.
The river's low.  The flow is listed at 2,000 cfs, but looks even lower as the river bottom is so clean (no moss displacement).

Please note that the warm weather had caused some low level runoff, and muddy water existed below Mountain Pocket (below the Denver Club's cabin), and Soap Creek.  It looked like you'd want to avoid fishing the right side of the river all together downstream of Soap Creek.




]]> Mon, 1 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#378 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - April 20th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#488 Recorded:  Sunny60 ° F Fishing: Good

The weather's been gorgeous.  I had the privilege of taking Jim and Corey Trewhella fishing yesterday.  For those who don't know Jim, he's the guy that's overcome so much in his life, that it'd leave you in awe.  Corey, and the rest of Jim's family deserve a lot of credit, too.

The river's mossy, and nymphing is cleanest on the upper Bighorn, so we stayed on the upper 3 miles.  Water temps around 40, and some baetis are coming off in the afternoon.  There are enough midges throughout the day, that you could easily stay dry fly fishing for the entire day (assuming the wind doesn't blow).   The river traffic is surprisingly high with pontoon boats, and rentals, but guide traffic seems to be down.

Anyway, we were nymphing a big midge pupae, and a little one for most of the day, but did get action on an olive wonder nymph, and a black quill in the afternoon.  Numbers of fish were good, but mostly caught smaller ones (perferct for Jim, as he'd rather not lose any).

I wanted to say a special thanks to Robert over at RO Driftboats for designing a handicapped accessible boat that provided anchor points on the floor for strapping down Jim's wheel chair.  Robert built this boat for Bighorn River Lodge, and they graciously let me borrow it for the day.  Thanks guys! 

Check out Jim's first fish in the "Client Photos" section of the photo gallery.





]]> Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#488 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - May 1st, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#506 Recorded:  Windy and Rain45 ° F Fishing: Good

Water temp is slowly climbing.  Bugs (midges and baetis in the afternoons) are still coming off in good numbers, but the weather's been brutal (windy every day, and very little sunshine).

With the rains, Mountain pocket has created some water clarity issues below the club on the right side, and Soap Creek is blown out.  I'd expect it to be for at least the next week, as we're expecting  more rain.

Nymphing is improving, although we're still battling the spring moss.  I've seen Rainbows showing some color, and you're able to find bigger fish right now.  Also encouraging is that you're finding fish in a little more variety of water when they climb up into some of the shallow faster stuff during the heat of the day.  The flow is 2,250 cfs, and if the snow pack continues to increase with these Spring storms, we may actually look at the possibility of some higher water.

Fish are getting a little wiser when dry fly fishing, but still attainable for the above average angler.



]]> Sat, 1 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#506 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - May 3rd, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#508 Recorded:  Windy and Rain0 ° F Fishing: Good

Just a quick note to let folks know that the flow is going up to 2,500 cfs tomorrow (Tuesday, 5/3/10), and will also be increased on Wednesday (5/4/10).  These flows are thought to be sustainable throughout the runoff season, and are a response to recent precipitation above Boysen Reservoir (WY).  I'm willing to bet that the flows end up going higher, but it all depends on how fast that snow pack comes off.  We'll see.



]]> Mon, 3 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#508 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - May 8th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#517 Recorded:  Mostly sunny45 ° F Fishing: Fair

Over the course of the week, the river now risen to 3,250 cfs.  Short term, it's made the fishing slower, and less predictable.  All the snow melt, and the rising river teamed up to drop the water temp back below 40 degrees.

Yesterday we finally had a relatively calm day, and a good baetis hatch, but really no fish up to speak of..  I think it's going to be a few days before everything settles out, and fishing improves.

Because of the snow on Thursday, Mountain Pocket  and Soap Creek are still pumping mud, and probably will for several more days.



]]> Sat, 8 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#517 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - May 14th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#541 Recorded:  Mostly sunny60 ° F Fishing: Good

O.K., lots of flow changes to catch up on here.  The river's on it's way up to 5,000 cfs after several days of steady rain, and a pretty big increase in snow pack.   The graph shows that it's still at 4,000, but was supposed to go up in 500 cfs increments last night, and today.  I believe this ultimately will happen by tomorrow. 

I  took the water temp at around 42 yesterday, so it's right there where it needs to be.  The river's pretty busy, and with the limited clear water (Soap Creek and Mountain Pocket are still pumping mud), a lot of people are double floating, or just staying on the upper 3.
The nymphing can be pretty good when wading, and the boat fishing isn't bad either if the flows could settle out for a day.  Still seeing good hatches coming off, but we'll need to see the flows stabilize in order to see good dry fly fishing again, too.

Always an enjoyable trip with the Collins boys, they did very well.  Imagine how they could do if they could cast.



]]> Fri, 14 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#541 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - May 26th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#579 Recorded:  Mostly cloudy55 ° F Fishing: Good

Well, from now until the end of July my main job will be to update the flow status, so here goes.  We're at 8,000 cfs right now, but we're heading to 8,750 cfs at 4 P.M. today (Wednesday, March 26th), and 9,500 tomorrow at 4 P.M.   The Spring rains have continued to come, and there's still a whole season's worth of snow waiting to come off.

What does this mean for the fishing?  The dry fly fishing of the spring is pretty much over, although you'll see a few baetis out most afternoons.  Nymphing can be good when you find the fish, but it'll be increasingly vital to have a boat to get around.  The fish are mostly full of sowbugs, and a couple of different patterns are about all you need.  I'm also getting them to eat a little olive midge pupae pretty well.

As the river comes up, the water's going to warm up, so this signifies the start of summer fishing, and the "worm hatch".

Where will the inflows will end up, I don't know, but hold on!



]]> Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#579 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - June 15th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#661 Recorded:  Mostly sunny65 ° F Fishing: Good

O.K., we're hanging in there at 9,500 cfs.  Nymphing is very good from the boat, as you might expect, but wading can very difficult right now.  The water temp is climbing into the upper 40's, so it's not prime time for San Juan Worm fishing, but it's getting close.  We're still finding mostly sowbugs in the fish, and I've been more consistently successful throwing "Soft Hackle" or "Ray Charles" type flies than with anything else.  Starting to see some Mother's Day Caddis buzzing around the lower river, but nothing much is happening with 'em.

Flows will almost certainly have to go up in the near future in order to accomodate the inflows, and the lack of available storage space for the water.  I'll keep you posted as we go along.

Muddy water from the feeder creeks has become far less of an issue, and you expect fishable banks all of the way down the upper sections.  Also, the spring moss is far less of an issue as well, but never completely dissapears.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#661 <![CDATA[Missouri River - June 28th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#697 Recorded:  Mostly sunny70 ° F Fishing: Great

Missouri River Report

I was able to spend a great week on the Missouri River, fishing below Holter Dam, and all of the sections down to Mountain Palace.  I very much enjoyed the fishing as the average size of fish was very impressive, and the action was steady all the way down through the canyon.

The flow was between 18,000 cfs to 19,000 throughout our week, but it seemed to help keep the bigger fish available, and in range for nymphing.  Sometimes the lower flows allow the bigger ones to disappear, and hold in water where it's tough to reach them. 

Although we caught some fish on PMD nymphs, our most successful tactics were fishing pink or tan soft hackles against the banks on the upper, and fishing a red chenille worm for a top fly in the canyon.   Pretty basic stuff, but when willing to fish lots of weight, and adjust leader length to your depth, kept us in constant action.

Thanks to the clients (you know who you are) for one of the more enjoyable weeks I've had in a long time.

DON'T FEAR THE HIGH WATER!

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#697 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - July 18th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#776 Recorded:  Mostly sunny90 ° F Fishing: Good

The Bighorn's flows are dropping.  It's 3,850 cfs as we speak, and will go to 3,500 cfs tomorrow at 4:00 P.M.  Flows will remain at that level as long as they feel comfortable sustaining them, but it could be for months. 

A special thanks to the Dickerson men, for spending part of their tour of the west on the Bighorn again this year.  Always a good time, and congratulations, Dave for the last day.

The water temp is holding in the upper 50's right now, but should drop a little when the emergency flood pool is completely evacuated.  PMD"s, and Yellow Sally's are coming off, and rising fish are available at most times of day.  The nymphing was good with immitations of the hatch flies, but a #16 tan soft hackle worked just as good for me yesterday.  Some Black Caddis are around, and I'd pumped a few out of fish yesterday, too.

Boat traffic was high, but manageable.

Hopper's are still small, but will undoubtedly become a factor in the coming weeks.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#776 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - August 15th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#851 Recorded:  Rain65 ° F Fishing: Good

Well, we finally got that break from the heat that I thought I wanted, but wasn't ready for.  It rained pretty hard on us on Friday, but the nymphing, and streamer fishing was good.  

Streamer fishing black seemed to be the way to go under the clouds, although fishing brown trout type buggers has been very solid in the sun.  Nymphing pseudo type nymphs was O.K., but the fish were really on Black Caddis Pupae, and anything small and black would work.  Worms are still taking fish, especially on the lower river where the feeder creeks were dumping in a little mud, and irrigation return exists.

The flow has dropped back to 2,500 cfs now, and should remain there for quite a while.

The hopper bite hasn't been ideal, but good anglers are still taking fish close to the banks (I mean really close), or twitching them in the middle.

Hot weather will return this week, so we'll see if it improves.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#851 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - September 22nd, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#963 Recorded:  Sunny65 ° F Fishing: Fair

The flow is flat lined at 2,500 cfs, and probably will be for a while.  Yesterday was a nice, comfortable fall day, with a satisfactory amount of fish caught. 

We nymphed all day as the nice folks were just learning, but are having to fight the fall grass qute a bit.  When the flies are clean, we were able to do pretty well on a San Juan, and a little flash back PT.

Tricos are still coming off every day, and rising fish are available in the mornings (later in the day after the cold nights).  Pseudos are still around in the late afternoon, too, with a smattering of Black Caddis. 

Streamer fishing has been effective, too, with light brown or white being my preference.

River traffic is up, but that's typical for September.  It's just a nice time to be out.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy
 



]]> Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#963 <![CDATA[Yellowstone River - October 4th, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1002 Recorded:  Mostly sunny80 ° F Fishing: Good

Had a good day on the Yellowstone yesterday, thanks to Roger and Caron.  It was a nice father daughter day.

Nymphing was slow early, but picked up as the day went on.  We were most successful with a small brown stonefly immitation with a prince nymph trailing. 

We didn't streamer fish for long, but weren't getting much action in the sunshine anyway.

Dry fly fishing was a lot of fun, and surprisingly productive with a beetle and a hopper.  Some Drakes were coming off, and a Parachute Adams would have worked, but we had good enough action to stick with what we were doing.  We caught quite a few mid-size and small fish, but mixed in some very nice ones, too.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy




]]> Mon, 4 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1002 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - November 1st, 2010]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1038 Recorded:  Mostly sunny60 ° F Fishing: Good

Had a nice trip with Jamie and Jean, thanks again for coming.

Fished the lower and upper sections, and would say the nymphing is better on the upper, and the streamer fishing better on the lower.  I wasn't seeing as many Pseudos, but started to see some fall Baetis on the lower.  Each day there were some rising fish, but we preferred to streamer fish right through, as the hatch periods often coincide with active feeding fish that'll chase a streamer too.

My fly selection included a worm, a Ray Charles, and a wondernymph tied in Pseudo colors.

I've been streamer fishing vanilla and white colored streamers tied in the Bugger or Aztec style.  When these aren't moving fish, I'll switch to Black.  I've been using a Black Zonker a lot.

At this point, it's probably equally grassy everywhere, you can't escape it by going to a particular section, you just have to deal with it.

The flow is at 2,350 cfs, so it's created a lot of soft, shallow riffles to fish.   The fish are pretty spread out, but every good looking piece of water is holding something. 

Browns are getting some color, and I'm seeing some clean gravel patches appear.  Might find a big one!

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Mon, 1 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1038 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - February 12th, 2011]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1158 Recorded:  Windy41 ° F Fishing: Good

O.K., haven't put up a report in a while, but my friend Jeff Buszmann just did his first guide trip of the year.  So, here's his report:

"Fished 3 to B on Friday. The wind blew at our backs most of the day. We put on around 930, only ones in the parking lot! We started out nymphing with a sj, pink ray, and a rootbeer midge. First fish was in the snag, a nice 18 inch brown on the pink ray. BTW the 12 year old could cast better than at least half of clients. We caught another nice bow in the snag. The dad switched to streamers and caught a brown at the top of the duck blind channel. We should not have taken that channel as the flows right now are too low. Saw a few redds back there but no fish on them still. Caught another nice bow on the black conehead bugger across from crow beach. Stopped on the leeward side of the corrals for lunch. We picked up a few fish here and and there, mostly on the pink sowbug stuff. I pumped a few fish and saw lots of huge sowbugs (14). We stopped and wade fished the right side of 3 rivers and got into several fish, very soft takes and the smaller class of browns (8-10 inches). It was sunny from about 11am on which may have hurt the streamer fishing some. We streamer fished out and got off around dark, stuck one fish between little horn rapids and last chance. For a windy day with a high of 41 in Feb not bad."

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1158 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - March 15th, 2011]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1229 Recorded:  Sunny50 ° F Fishing: Good

Had a nice day on Sunday.  Floated the river (3-B) with a couple of guides that I needed to get to know a little better.  We did a lot of streamer fishing (which I would say was just O.K. at times, but I've got a lot of streamers to test out). 

The flow was recently bumped up to 2,500 cfs, and is most likely to run a little higher throughout the spring.  With a little bit of warm weather, the inflows at 3,400 cfs already, and the low elevation runoff has muddied the lower river.  Soap Creek, Beauvais, and Woody are all blown out, but hopefully this clears quickly.

Nymphing was good, and I saw enough midges on the surface to show signs of a dry fly fishing day, but we had just enough wind to put that idea to rest.  Midges (black) and sowbugs (brownish) were in the fish that I pumped, and found no better pattern than a small soft hackle.  Water's cold (upper 30's), but the fish were active despite this, and we were finding fish in some pretty fast water for this time of year.

It was a busy day for March, but can't blame people for wanting to enjoy the weather, it's been a long, cold winter.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1229 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - March 28th, 2011]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1263 Recorded:  Snow33 ° F Fishing: Great

As far as the spring water situation is concerned, I thought it might be helpful to include today's statement to the "Friends of the Bighorn River" concerning the Bureau of Reclamation's operation plan.

"Friends,

With the lake elevation the sixth highest on record for this date,
ample snowpack and a wet inflow forecast, its no surprise this message
arrived a few minutes ago from Reclamation:

"Inflows to Bighorn Lake continue to exceed our projections.  To keep
on-track with reaching a reservoir elevation target of approximately
3614 feet by mid-May, releases to the Bighorn River will be increased
from 2,750 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 3,000 cfs later today."

Also, this Saturday, the Bighorn River Alliance will be holding a
river cleanup and would appreciate a few hours of your time. Plan on
meeting this Saturday morning at 9am at the Bighorn Trout Shop,
working the river for a few hours and fishing in the afternoon. The
Alliance will also be hosting a barbeque at the Bighorn River Lodge
(by Bighorn FAS) at 4pm and all cleanup helpers are invited.  It
should be great fun, and your participation is greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!

-Doug"

That's Doug Haacke, #1 advocate for the Bighorn River.

NOTE- Current lake elevation is 3,621 ft. (18.6 ft. below full pool) so their goal is to 3,614 ft. in order to better handle runoff.  I think it's reasonable to expect that our flows will continue to go up to around 4,000 cfs in order to accommodate current inflows and reach their goal.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1263 <![CDATA[Bighorn River - March 28th, 2011]]> http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1262 Recorded:  Cloudy40 ° F Fishing: Great

Yesterday marked the first trip of my 12th season, and was a great day to be out despite the weather.  I want to thank Brian for the trip, see you next Saturday!

Water temp is in the upper 30's still, and no real sign of baetis.  Had some midges hatching, but not a real aggressive dry fly bite.  I can tell that the dry fly fishing is on it's way soon, though.  Streamer fishing was slow, as well.  The flow was 2,750 cfs, but I just received word that we're going up to 3,000 cfs later today.  When I pumped fish, I found only small sowbugs and black midge pupae.

Nymphing was the story of the day.  I tied on a pink #14,a tan #16 soft hackle, and fished it all day.  I did start out with a #20 tan for a short period of time, but was quickly obvious going small was not necessary.  We only changed flies to put on fresh ones, otherwise.  Of course lots of our fish were of the smaller variety, but we were able to get some nice (18 plus inch fish) too.  Looks like a very healthy river, and a good year to come.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy



]]> Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://bigskyflyfishers.com/fishing-reports#1262