The Bighorn

Most of the destinations we picked for this trip were ones that Korin and I had dreamed of visiting. I lobbied to visit the Bighorn River in eastern Montana because of a great trout fishing experience I had with my brother-in-law two years ago. The Bighorn River, just below the Yellowtail Dam in the Crow Reservation is one of the great trophy trout rivers in the lower 48. I wanted to recreate the experience I had for Eli, who is just getting into fishing. Unfortunately for us, the fishing was a bit slow by Bighorn standards. By any other standard though, we did great. Eli landed several trout, two of which were (Rainbow and Brown) in the 20 inch range (didn’t get pics of these monsters of those because we were wading the river). At one point, Eli was casting his classic rooster tail spinner into a nice pool and called me over because he thought he was stuck on a rock. I told him to whip the rod a few times and it should come loose. No dice. So, I walked over, took the rod and his “rock” started swimming away. Eli took over again, and walked down the bank to land (and release) a large whiplashed brown trout!

To escape the heat of afternoon, we took a ride up to the Yellowtail Dam Visitor Center which is run by the National Park Service. Wow, what a step back in time! It was clean and informative, but it hadn’t been updated since the dam was built in 1968. The vintage dam construction movie was as interesting because it shown a huge spotlight on what was important and valued in the 60’s. Societal “progress” was measured by the volume of concrete that could be placed in a single day by cigar smoking men with “strong hands cunning minds” to impound the wild Bighorn river to create a huge lake in Bighorn Canyon. How times have changed in just one generation. Today, the electricity and water generated by the Yellowtail Dam is sold by the Crow Nation. The dam is also largely responsible for the great trout fishery downstream. It is the cool tailwaters released from the dam that allow these trout to thrive in the heat of summer.

While at the visitor center, we overheard a local mention that Bighorn Lake was Montana’s best kept secret. Curious, we took the 10 mile drive to Ok-A-Beh marina, where, the landscape changed from gently sloping grassy hills to red-rock canyon cliffs up to 1000 feet high. It was a splendid surprise. Most of the canyon can only be seen from the lake, so we rented a pontoon boat. We rounded the marina, and were stunned by contrast of deep green ponderosa pines clinging to red rock, while our boat glided effortlessly along the glassy surface of Bighorn Lake. Because it is on the Crow reservation, there are no structures on the lake. It is a pristine landscape. We explored the Black Canyon portion of the lake by boat, which was much easier than exploring the Black Canyon of the Gunnison by foot! And, with a stroke of luck, the smallmouth bass were biting. We had fun landing these little fighters with the canyon walls towering above our boat. We agreed if we had to do the visit again, we would have devoted at least another day to exploring the Bighorn Canyon. We look forward to coming back!