Wading the Bighorn My fingers were cold. That's what fishing the Bighorn River in Montana in November will do for you. Not only was it cold, it was snowing so hard I needed windshield wipers on my sunglasses just to see where I was wading. Sure, it was gorgeous. But my numb fingers were barking. And that was while wearing the $40 fleece gloves I had bought specifically for this trip. Although the gloves allowed me to cover or expose my fingers, all 10 digits were usually wiggling in the cold. At first I was either tying on flies or unhooking my line from the sagebrush along the banks. Later, after I figured out the secret formula for catching fish on this river, I kept exposing my fingers to unhook all the fish I caught. The first day on the river, I was stubborn. I kept trying to fish one fly at a time, because that had always been enough to catch fish on other streams. I was wrong. I needed a tandem set of flies. By the middle of day two, with heavy, wet snowflakes falling all around me, I tied on my first tandem flies. It was magic. The browns and rainbows started sniffing and hitting my line with steady regularity. Cast, hook, cast, hook became my mantra. This was much more fun than trying to validate my fishing experience by looking at the beauty around me. And it was beautiful. Everywhere we looked there were snow-laced trees and meadows harmonizing into a pastoral scene. The sounds of the gurgling river served as our guide, drawing us onward toward the next riffle. One of the Bighorn's best qualities was that it offered favorable wading and casting conditions. There were also numerous islands and tributaries full of gravel beds, holes and troughs. It was like fishing with a treasure map. Whether I worked my way upstream or downstream, the river continued to entice and provide. And not once in all of my stream crossings, did I fear being pulled down by the current. Not once did I feel I was fishing in water too high to be safe. And not once did I wish I weren't on the river. For even though it was cold, those of us who chose to wade instead of fish from a drift boat, were actually warmed by our movement. Standing in the river also made it easier to de-ice our frozen rod guides. Just a quick dip in the 55-degree stream warmed them long enough to reel in another fish. That is, unless your reel froze up completely, like mine did. It was around sunset on our last day on the river. As I was worked my way back toward the car, I got a nice strike that put a good bend in my 4-weight rod. When I tried to reel the fish in, I was dumbfounded to find that my reel wouldn't move. I thought it was broken, so I was holding up the rod tip, trying to keep the line taut and at the same time attempting to get the reel to move. A fellow angler, fishing nearby, hollered over, "Dip your reel in the water." In one of those ah-ha moments, I realized the reel was simply frozen. After I plunged it into the water, I began reeling. Fast. Yet it wasn't fast enough. The reel froze again. I stepped back to keep the line taut and dipped the reel back into the water. Finally, I was able to reel in my catch - a fat, 18-inch brown trout, about the average size fish caught during our weekend on the Bighorn. Since we threw back every single one, when you decide to fish this incredible fishery next fall, those same fish will be even bigger! Just don't forget your gloves.
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