October Fly Fishing on the Bighorn River

Since the weather last spring during the last week of May was so cold and wet, I thought for sure we’d have a nice fall, maybe even an Indian summer.  No such luck.  The first week of October, which is usually my favorite time to be out on the water, had unseasonably cold, wet weather – even snow.

I met my son-in-law Nick and grandson Nick (if they were from New York I would have just said the New York Nicks) on Monday at Nick’s sister’s house in Casper Wyoming.  They had spent the night there after a 20 hour drive from their home in Cincinnati.  Sarah and Rob have a wonderful house - and what a great location! The North Platte runs right through Casper.  On the drive I noticed many sportsman’s access points just before Casper.  We discussed how we would have to take advantage of visiting them and spend time on the North Platte.  It has been a few years since we had a guided trip on the North Platte.

We reached the Bighorn Angler shop in Ft. Smith at 6:45 PM.  The note on the door gave directions to our lodge and indicated that dinner was at 7:00.  

I’m glad my wife had given us this trip for both our birthdays. Otherwise, we’d be setting up a tent in the cold wind rather than heading into the warm cafeteria with dinner waiting.

On Tuesday the weather was nice (no snow and above freezing).  We had a drift boat rented from Bighorn Angler for the week. This rental includes launching the boat, the shuttle and sack lunch. We had them launch the boat at the dam so we could float from Afterbay to 3-mile Access.

We rowed across the river and spent considerable time fishing the first stretch were the guides usually take their clients.  

This entails drifting while fishing this 300 yard stretch, then rowing over to the calm water near shore and rowing back up river, repeated several times.

Catching a fish or two on each drift ensures their clients start the day having caught a few trout and having the skunk out of the boat.  We indeed hooked a few here and I thought we would have a successful day based on that.  

At the islands just before 3-mile Nick pulled the boat over so we could get out and wade fish.  

This location had some great looking water but still the fish would not bite.

It ended up being a tough day of fishing just like the guides back at the shop said they’d been having lately.  

Guess what we woke up to the next day???