We arrived into Fort Smith right outside of the BigHorn National Recreation Area.  Wick actually has a fishing boat there, so he showed us his boat and we went into the local store.  They had some really cool hats so several of us got a Montana Angler hat.  I had been wearing my Utah Rocks hiking hat and hadn’t caught a fish.  I told Jeff that it will all change with this hat.

When we arrived at the river, we once again waited on our guides.  Wick and Dean decided to wade at the end of the 3 mile while the rest of us took the boats.  Within seconds of leaving the boat ramp, Chris pulls in a brown trout.  A few minutes later, I pull in my first fish of the week, then my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on.  I had caught my 3rd fish, and Jeff hadn’t caught a fish yet, so instead of releasing it back in the water gently, I chucked it over towards his boat.  I learned afterwards that you should not do this 🙂 Chris was basically my photographer when I caught my first few fish and I felt bad, but was really appreciative that he did this for me.  The funny thing was when I brought in my 5th fish and we would normally take a photo of me holding it, the guide grabbed it from the net, showed it to me and threw it back in.  Too funny.

We spent the rest of the day on the water and I ended up catching NINE fish, while Jeff caught the longest – 22″.  The two newbies catch the most fish on the trip and the longest fish on the trip – clearly beginner’s luck.  However, skillfully Chris caught the best fish on the trip which was a fat 20″ rainbow trout which he fought for about 8 minutes.  I actually video’d the whole battle to later learn I must have hit the record button twice and missed the whole thing.  We did get some great pics though.

We found out when we got back to the boat ramp that Todd and Dean didn’t have the success that all of us in the boat did.  In fact, Todd hadn’t had a bite or caught a fish all afternoon.  When the boat returned with Jeff and Greg, the guide asked to change up Todd’s rod.  After the change, it only took 1 cast for Todd to bring in a 20″ trout, his sole catch of the day.

On the way home, we stopped at Redneck Pizza for dinner, and it wan’t too bad surprisingly. We got back and hung out and got packed up for the flight back tomorrow.  What a great trip with some great guys!

If you don’t want to read about fly-fishing – STOP READING NOW

This trip was the first time that I had ever gone fly-fishing, and I learned a lot.  Fly-fishing gear is much different than a basic fishing pole.  The fly rod is 9ft long and has a fishing line (the leader) holed though the rod.  The leader is attached to a rubber fishing line that floats on the water.  There are 3 types of flies – Caddis, Stone and Mayflies. We fished mostly hoppers on the surface on the Yellowstone and pheasant tail nymphs on the Big Horn.”

We were fly fishing for trout.  Mostly rainbow and brown trout, and cut-throat trout which are only found in the Yellowstone River. You can tell a rainbow trout by the bright line that runs the length of the fish.  Brown trout are identified by numerous brown spots on their body, and cut-throat are by 2 red lines below their mouth. When you are catching the trout, it is called “setting the hook”. Trout don’t have teeth, so no risk of losing a finger getting the hook out of their mouth. 

Caddis flies (“nymphs”), stoneflies (“emerges”), mayflies (“terrestrials”).