Rocky Mountain News
Rocky Mountain News (CO)
June 17, 2005
BIGHORN SHRUGS OFF DROUGHT, OFFERS A BUMPER CROP OF TROUT
Author: Ed Dentry, Rocky Mountain News
Edition: Final
Section: Sports
Page: 24C
Dateline: FORT SMITH, Mont.
Estimated printed pages: 4
Article Text:
Driftboat skippers were grinning like Cheshire cats and bursting with chatter about the good old days. The Bighorn River is back.
The famed blue-ribbon reach that flows through the Crow Indian Reservation was stretching its shoulders and arms like a sleeper waking. Currents have been swelling and sweeping away detritus from seven years of drought. Trout have been exploring side channels that formerly went to weeds.
"This is neat. There's lots of river to explore again," fishing outfitter Dave Johnson said as he rowed into a deep, heavy run that used to be air.
Last Friday, more water boiled from Afterbay Dam than at any time in those seven years. On Saturday, the surge was even greater, 4,200 cubic feet per second and rising. And it will rise even higher.
"There's still a lot of snow in the upper Wind River in Wyoming," said Ken Frazer, fisheries biologist for Montana Game, Fish and Parks. "I wouldn't be surprised to see a g! ood spring flush of 5,000-6,000 cfs or even higher."
That's a tall drink of water compared with a parching of biblical duration, when the Bighorn stooped as low as 1,100 cfs. Drought inflicted scores of river ailments: gunky, sulfur-smelling sediment; messy algae; float lanes reduced to one main channel and bony riffles; young trout forced to share the channel with large, predatory trout.
Bighorn angling buffs bailed out like Rockies baseball fans.
Summer dry fly-fishing went to pot. Theories hold that great hatches of Trico and pale morning dun mayflies suffered from siltation. Conditions for the mayflies were made worse by chilled flows from deep in the dam; no warm water spilled over the top.
Not that trout food has been scarce. Things have changed. Hordes of sow bugs, scuds and aquatic worms overwhelmed the mayflies. Nymphing has been good; the San Juan Worm and Ray Charles (a sowbug pattern) are among the most popular flies these days.
But! now the flush is on and the healing begins. Everyone is upbeat about the scrubbing the Bighorn is getting and looking forward to the return of world-class dry fly-fishing.
"Bring it on," said Mike Craig, who ran away from Colorado in the mid-1980s and has been something of an institution here since the Bighorn first opened to the public.
Craig rowed a dory across from his riverside home hard by a spot many know, appropriately, as Mike's Hole. He and his companion, Labrador retriever Ruby, aimed to share some river wisdom, news and lunch.
Craig is long on river wisdom, Ruby big on lunch. First, don't worry about the glop, he said. Since launching at the dam, we had floated from clear water into something like spinach soup, certain evidence that overnight jumps in 500 cfs increments are chasing away bad memories.
"It took 48 hours to clear up after the water went up 500 cfs the last time," he said.
Fishing improves each time the river settles into the next higher step. After a couple days of higher water, another load of aquatic salad washes away. Trout settle into new feeding lanes.
That spinach can be troublesome, but veteran anglers have a remedy; they've learned to execute the Bighorn Swoosh. The people you see flogging the water with their fly rods aren't necessarily having temper tantrums. They're just relieving their hooks of glop.
If you can keep your flies clean, odds are greater than ever that you will catch quality-sized trout in the Bighorn. Trout numbers nosedived during the drought, but those that remained grew big.
"It's a biomass thing," Craig said. "If you've got 100 pounds of hamburger and 10 guys, they get big a lot quicker than if you've got 100 guys getting a pound apiece."
The proof was in the pudding. A bit upstream of our lunchtime rendezvous, Dr. Ed Running, of Arvada, hooked a handsome cutbow trout on a Ray Charles fly. Johnson used a San Juan Worm to snooker a well-fed 24-inch male rainbow trout from a newly watered side channel.
Although the Bighorn never has been known for monster trophies, rep orts of heftier trout than ever are far from hype. Frazer, the chief biologist, was floating last week with his electroshocking crew, gathering data for 2005.
"Normally, we're lucky if we spend two weeks to catch one or two trout to make four pounds," he said. "Now we've been getting brown trout and rainbows over four pounds just about every day.
"I've been on the river for 15 years, and these are the biggest fish I've ever seen down there," he said. "Plus, there's a good, strong yearling year- class."
Several brown trout greater than 18 inches also checked in. But those yearlings provided some of the best news. Almost immediately after we had launched, Tom Denny, of Fort Smith, had hooked and released two 8-inch rainbow trout, up-and-coming players in the fishery.
Frazer's fish counts are rising rapidly, though trout in the middle ranges remain rare. He figures trout older than 2 years number only about 500 per mile for browns and 500 per mile for rainbows.
"That's still bottom," he said.
Add those yearlings, however, and the (2004) count rises to 2,800 rainbows and 3,100 brown trout a mile. And this year's crop of young also appears to be huge.
No one doubts the Bighorn is waking from its long, fitful sleep.
Caption:
Dr. Ed Running, of Arvada, rowing, and Tom Denny, of Fort Smith, Mont., launched from the Afterbay access into the highest flows the Bighorn River has seen in seven years. The blue-ribbon trout river is in position for a good flushing and fishing for trout up to 4 pounds is the best ever. PHOTOS BY ED DENTRY / ROCKY MOUNTAIN
NEWS
CAPTION: Dr. Ed Running, left, and Denny had reason to smile about a fine cutbow trout and the highest flows in seven years on the Bighorn River in Montana.
CAPTION: Dave Johnson, of Fort Smith, Mont., prepares to release a 24-inch rainbow trout from the Bighorn, which is carrying more big fish than ever.Photo (3)
Memo:
dentrye@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5481
COLUMN
Copyright (c) 2005 Rocky Mountain News
Record Number: 0506170306
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