Bighorn River · fly box
A cold, stable tailwater with 3,000+ fish per kilometre and midge hatches in January.
| Pattern | Imitates | Size | Technique |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ray Charles, grey | Chironomid pupa | #18-20 | Indicator at 1.2 m, fished in the slow seams behind gravel bars. |
| Soft Hackle Partridge | Emerging caddis | #16 | Swing it through the riffle and let it rise at the end of the drift. |
| CDC Trico Spinner | Tricorythodes spinner | #22-24 | Long 5-metre leader, 6X or 7X, cast to pods of rising fish and do not move it. |
| Bighorn Special | Generic mayfly nymph | #16-18 | The local confidence fly; a two-nymph rig with this on the point covers most days. |
| White Zonker | Injured baitfish | #6 | Strip fast through the deep slot at Three Mile when flows are up. |
The dressing plate
On this river
The winter midge game
From December to February the whole river switches to midges. Fish a two-fly rig with a pupa on the point and a smaller pupa 40 cm above it, under an indicator set shallow — 60 to 90 cm — because midges emerge in the top metre. Watch the indicator for a sideways slide rather than a dunk; trout take pupae on the move and rarely hold.
Reading a tailwater column
Because the flow is steady, the Bighorn has a stable three-layer structure: fast gravel on the surface, a mid-column of suspended food at 1–1.5 m, and a slow bottom layer. In a single run you should fish all three before moving — indicator rig through the mid-column, then a Euro-style tight line along the bottom, then a dry if anything is up.
Float etiquette on a busy river
The Bighorn gets over 100 boats on a June Saturday. The workable convention is that a boat already anchored on a run owns the run; pass on the far side and do not stop within 50 metres below it. Walk-and-wade anglers have priority on the first two kilometres below the dam, because there is nowhere else for them to go.