Bighorn Fly & Tackle Shop

Guided floats run on the Bighorn River below the Yellowtail Afterbay Dam, the tailwater the shop calls a legendary blue ribbon fishery and describes as fishable in all twelve months. Boats put in at Fort Smith, and the published float sections start with Afterbay down to Three Mile, with Thirteen Mile and Two Leggins farther downstream. Rainbow and brown trout are the fish. Trips are sold by the day at $645 for a single angler and $745 for two, and the rate covers rods, reels, waders, boots, flies and terminal tackle, a lunch, and instruction pitched anywhere from a first day with a fly rod to long experience. Montana licenses and guide gratuity, suggested at $125 to $150 a day, are separate. The shop describes November through February as subsurface months worked with worm and crustacean imitations, with surface action opening up from March and April onward. Guided days are also sold bundled into lodging packages.