A few thoughts...

So last week we attended a meeting at the BLM office in Worland, the subject was guided fishing on the Bighorn. It was different to see a bunch of fishing guides sitting around talking without any whisky or beer. It seems that most fishing guides worry about out of state or non resident fishing guides exploiting their home rivers and running back to Montana, Colorado or Utah to spend their profits. So what's considered local? Of the ten or twelve guides present at the meeting, only three of us made the drive from Thermopolis. Does that mean the rest of us were too lazy? No... because there's only five fishing guides that live here in Thermopolis and the other two were on the river. Now I know most of the out of town guides bring their own clients out here because their home river is muddy or wind blown, and yeah they support the local economy by dining in the restaurants, drinking at the bars, and paying lodging tax. They also see that it's very easy to blame out of state guides for ruining this fishery,  but honestly as a resident of Thermopolis who fishes this river 250+ days a year, there are really only a handful of out of staters that come out here and guide for a couple days and then ya never see them again. In short you could hire a fishing guide from Casper, Cody, Lander or Sheridan, or you could hire one of the few from Thermopolis that might be struggling to pay rent or a car payment or insurance. Fishing guides are a dime a dozen these days, but the good ones cost $450 a day and live on the river they guide. Shop local.

 -Neil Strickland & Alyssa Halls