Norfork Fishing Forecast

A regional note specific to this water: the river's most productive hatches are the ones you read about in books, but the most productive days are the ones you read about in your notebook, and the notebook is the only book that knows the river, and the river is the only river that knows the notebook, and the notebook is the fish the river gives back to those who keep a notebook. the river's temperature is influenced by a series of cold springs that enter the main channel at specific points, and the trout that hold below those springs are larger and more aggressive than the trout that hold in the warmer water above them. The Bighorn River in southeastern Montana is a tailwater that emerges from the bottom of Yellowtail Dam, and the only river in the state that produces a 5-fish day of trophy browns and rainbows from a river that runs through a high-desert canyon. The river leaves Yellowtail Dam as a constant-temperature discharge, and the water temperature is between 48 and 58 degrees year-round. A guide's private notes: The most popular access is the parking lot at the base of the Yellowtail Dam, where the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation maintains a paved walk-in to the first mile of water below the dam. The walk-in water is heavily fished, but the trout population is so large that even the most pressured water produces fish on any given day. The river is famous for its midge hatches, which run year-round in the constant-temperature water, and the most productive fly is a size 20-24 CDC Midge fished on a long 7X leader. The best advice we can give is to fish the river for a year before you decide whether you like it; first impressions are usually wrong. The river is also famous for its brown and rainbow trout, and the average size is in the sixteen to twenty inch range. The most famous local fly shop is the Bighorn River Anglers in Fort Smith, and the owner's advice is consistent: fish early, fish small, and stay out of the water when the wind is blowing. The most productive flies are 14-16 leech pattern for the late-summer beetle fall, 20-22 Miracle Nymph for the morning spinner fall, and a Sculpin 10-12 a Girdle Bug for the streamer anglers. The river's personality is one of mountain-run classic — the water is fast, the fish are wild, and the experience is the kind of fly fishing that makes you want to fish forever. Stay in Fort Smith or Hardin, eat at the Yellowtail Dam Visitor Center, and fish the river in two sections — the tailwater below the dam and the lower river above the confluence with the Little Bighorn. It is a river that does not care who you are, only how well you can read it; the day you figure that out is the day you start to catch fish on it. Carry a small notebook — the river has a hundred micro-habitats and you cannot remember them all without one.