The Bighorn

     There were too many evenings in the last three years when I gave up recreational activities to study earnings per share, dividend growth models, and other means of quantitative analysis that make sense of a stock ticker.  I can recall a dark, winter evening - you know the kind that's black at five with a subfreezing wind chill- sometime toward the end of my MBA track, where I needed a boost.  Not a coffee jolt - I mean a shot of hope with a chaser of freedom. I got up from the kitchen table, walked into the living room and announced to my wife that if I successfully finish my degree, I am going on a destination fly fishing trip. There. I said it. The wife lazily looked back over at me and told me that under no circumstances am I permitted to book anything.  It was already planned.

     I can tell you that Montana has a lot of barbed wire.  I cruised along I-90 east out of Billings amongst the prairie and admired the roaming cattle and horses with my friend, John, as we headed towards Hardin.  It felt like a step back in time and I learned very quickly where the term Big Sky Country came from.

     The idea was to fish the most prolific trout river in the country, one that has been proven to hold as many as 8,000 trout per mile.  Hey, to lay out that kind of coin and lose two days of my life to travel, who wouldn't mind a little reassurance that there were fish in the area?

     And float it.... Cover up to eighteen miles with a guide at the oars over the course of three days.  I had never enlisted the use of a guide for fly fishing before, nor have I ever been in a Clackacraft and the opportunity here was perfect. 

     For all that I studied and wrote about economic cycles and the models that forecasted them- leaving school unconvinced that any of them work anyway- Montana weather is no more predictable.  A high of 92 under a bluebird sky was a great start.

   

     Within 48 hours, temps dove into the high 30s at night and struggled to break out of the 40s while sheets of rain came in off & on.  You can only pack for so many weather conditions and thus, days two and three came with intermittent shivering.  My neck buff, which had been protecting me from sunburn on Monday, turned into a turtleneck for warmth the two days following.

     Whether our faces were burning or our hands were freezing, the fishing was thought to be "average" for the area, yet far better than anything I could have arranged in the Northeast and thus, still exceeded my expectation.

     The vast majority of the trip was spent watching tricos and pseudos float on the surface by the hundred-thousand, completely ignored by fish for all but a short percentage of the day.  Thus, we entrusted the old western standby of indicator nymphing- obviously something I am familiar and comfortable with-- in order to cover some ground under the surface. Flows were moving between 3700 and 4000 CFS.  Typically, seven feet between indicator and a pair of BB shot -wow- before presenting some form of attractor scud on the first fly and a more realistic sowbug in the back, such as a tan or grey Ray Charles.  And for what felt like rope to me, 3X and 4X to the nymphs, which gave me a little extra confidence on the fight.

     To change up the pace a little bit, we sometimes wandered out of the boat for a wade-walk period and stretched the legs.  I enjoyed these parts because the fishing felt a little more personal.  My first ever Montana wading attempt produced for me six fish in ten minutes on a riffle a dozen times wider than I could cast, that started eight inches deep and graduated from there.  I couldn't believe the bravery of the fish to be on a shelf that shallow.  

     Eventually, we did come upon rising fish towards the end of the third, and final day.  When they looked up, the numbers were like nothing I have ever seen back east.  "I saw a few risers" in my experience, means I saw about a dozen fish erratically splashing.  On the Bighorn, they feed in expansive pods and there were often several hundred fish sipping on the surface at one time- quite frankly it was amazing to watch and finally gave credibility to what you read about in the magazines.  Giving credit to Rob, our guide, he slid around and anchored up behind a smaller pod to give me a chance to present a dry upstream to this group.  It took several presentations, but eventually a beautiful rainbow took a tiny comparadun pseudo and layed the wood to my drag.  A few minutes later, I was a happy camper. 

     It could cost a decent sum of money, but Montana is something every eastern angler needs to try just once in their life.  This was a bucket list trip for me- something I've wanted to do forever.  I promise you a destination trip like this will make you a more well-versed fisherman with experiences you can take back to your home waters.  My brain became quite full- for every western fly fishing tip that I picked up, I had to unload something about net present value, rates of return, and cost of capital to fit it in.

     I had a fleeting thought that in three days on the river, we actually did not break the 20" mark on a fish, though several of them pushed it pretty tight.  The thought that instead replaced it was the fact that I caught in the neighborhood of forty fish that were 16" or better over the course of three days.  I have never done that in the east.

     But the real story- the Montana experience.  The lodge, the fly shop talk, an awesome guide, the views, and a lifetime trip with a good buddy.  I never lost the nervous butterflies that I showed up with, and I fished and laughed like this was the only time I'd ever see it.