Bighorn River - Thermopolis, WY - Fishing Report

Been a little breezy out here the last couple days but it looks like it should lay down for the rest of the week. Nymphing remains super productive with scuds, sow bugs and midge pupas. There are rainbows on redds right now so if you happen to see some big fish in shallow water on clean bright gravel, don't be a jack ass and walk thru the redds or atempt to snag the spawners... there's plenty of good water out there right now that has a lot of feeding fish in it. And if you still can't catch fish,  hire a guide.  Just booked Thursday, oughtta be a fine day for catching. Have the weekend open. And Alyssa is totally open too, here's  your chance to fish with a top-rate female guide...don't miss it.

Alyssa and Jen with a two and a half handed brown

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

Open dates

Had a couple guys cancel on me for the weekend which is too bad because the weather looks excellent mid to uppers 50s and sunshine and fishing has been stellar. Give me a call if ya wanna jump in.  $350 full day 2 anglers lunch included. Also have plenty of days open next month... should start seeing bwo's about mid March. As awesome as the nymphing has been lately 40-70 fish days, I'm really looking forward to fishing dries and yanking big browns from under the olive trees.

On the water report

Herb and Adam came up from Denver to do some fishing today and the weather and the trout were very cooperative. We counted 40 fish to the net and about as many came unbuttoned. Herb had never really done any fly fishing before but he picked it up real quick and even landed a couple 20+ inch browns

Herb the ginseng brown slayer

Taped this brown at 18" long and 10.5" around

Lots of nice browns eating the nymph in the bright sun and plenty of fat rainbows

And we had like 7 doubles.

The weekend was pretty busy but we pretty much had the river all to ourselves today.

Double date with the Muellers

Had a great Valentines day float with our friends Geoff and Kat... it was gals vs guys and while the gals hooked more fish I'm pretty sure ours were bigger.

Kat and Alyssa gettin it done

Fish were flying today

Tomorrow is a down day. Sleeping in and tying bugs, got a couple big streamer orders to fill this week. Booked Tuesday, I'll let ya know how it goes. We've  got Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday open. Still running the deep discount for winter which is crazy because fishing is so fuckin good right now I should be charging folks double.

See ya on the river.

Holy wind batman

Fishing was miserable today but the catching was pretty darn good. Did a half day float with Todd from Wyoming Outdoorsmen in Cody and we hooked about 30 fish including his first ever brown trout and we got the slam with a bunch of rainbows and a couple cutthroat as well as a few whitefish... the sucker weren't very bitey today. We had about an hour of fishing when it wasn't nuking 40mph winds upstream and just kinda hung behind the boat traffic and had to push thru a lot of water but we dinged em all the way down whenever we got a slight reprieve from the "w".

Wyoming Outdoorsmen is having a banquet/auction in Cody on April 2nd and we've donated a full day float trip. Sounds like a great organization that works with WF&G to secure public access. They're even going to improve the parking lot at Wedding for those busy days. Construction starts in April.

Happy guy with a happy rainbow

I asked a couple of Casper guides to leave and take the wind back home with them, so maybe tomorrow will be a little nicer.

Did a lower river float yesterday with the WRCW crew and streamer fishing sucked but we found a few nice fish. Didn't see a single boat and never felt a breath of wind

It was a pleasant day of fishing with good buddies and great guides.

I've got all of next week open and the fishing forecast looks excellent so drop whatever the hell else you're doing and hop in the boat. Give us a call first, operators are standing by.

On the water report

Pretty busy out there for mid week but it looked like most boats were doing well. Streamer fishing started off with a bang and got a couple of these guys

But the action didn't stick so half way thru the day we started nymphing and hooked about 40 of these

Fishing is on feugo right now and frankly you're doing yourself a disservice by not hopping in the front of my boat tomorrow... especially since we're still offering full days for 2 anglers at $350.

Warmth

Forecast for the next couple weeks has highs in the mid forties to fifties... give us a call and let's go fishing. Lots of hungry eager trout out there. The weekends have  been kind of busy and by that I mean 5 or 6 boats. Mid week sees little to no pressure.

Lets go.... brooooncooos