Mornings arrived early for the 13 participants and 2 speakers at the Bighorn River meeting April 10-15. Drs. Mike Willard (an internist from Texas A & M University) and Steve Birchard (a surgeon from The Ohio State University) began their lively discussions at 6:30 AM. There is always a healthy tension between internal medicine veterinarians and surgeons. This played out to the benefit of the IAFFV attendees with exciting repartees between the two speakers. The small group format allowed for lots of group interactions with both speakers and attendees taking full advantage of this opportunity. Discussions went well into and through the break periods on most of the four days of the meeting.

Attendees were: Drs. Doug Andrews of Portland, Maine; Mike Lemelin, of Fair Haven, Massachusetts; Corey Cherrstrom, of Loomis, California; Tony Evangelista of Concord, Ohio; Les Martin of Winnemucca, Nevada; Larry Mitchell, of Indianapolis, Indiana; Alan Peterson of Clinton Corners, New York; Don Sawyer of Okemos, Michigan; Robert Schleiffarth of Niles, Michigan; Joseph Seng of Huntley, Illinois; Stuart Sherburne of Winterport, Maine; Brad Baker of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada; Walt Weirich, Organizer of Tucson, Arizona and the two speakers.

True to form, Montana weather in April proved predictably unpredictable with rain, snow, cold mornings, cold sunny days, warm sunny days, warm cloudy days, cold cloudy days and wind; all in the span of four days. Fortunately, the only really windy day was the last day and even then many fish were caught and released. The fishing was nothing short of fantastic. The fish were slow in appearing in the morning with not much action, even on nymphs, until after about 10:00 AM. By noon or shortly thereafter, when the midge and blue wing olive hatches began to appear, the fish could then be found rising in large numbers usually in the slack water behind islands and bends in the river. When the casting was good the fish attacked the dry flies on the surface with much vigor and the fight was on. The Bighorn River is a great rainbow and brown trout fishery, but on this trip most of the fish caught were brown trout. Many were 20 inches in size with the smaller ones at least 15 inches.

This was the fifth trip by the IAFFV to the Kingfisher Lodge. Two earlier trips were in the fall and this was the third in the spring. The change from fall to the spring was made to take advantage of the opportunity to have more consistent dry fly fishing. Depending on conditions, dry flies were very productive at some time during each day. When fish were not rising, nymphing was always successful. Streamers also proved to be effective especially on the very windy final day.

The Kingfisher Lodge of Fort Smith, Montana, operated by Matt and Keri McMeans, is a very well run operation. The facilities are relatively new and very well maintained. The food is gourmet in quality, and served to meet our schedule. The staff was at the ready to meet our every need. The guides are all very knowledgeable of the rivers constantly changing conditions. They were skilled in getting all of us in the right place at the right time with the right fly combination so that we all caught a lot of fish. The technique had to vary depending on the availability of rising fish. The early April time slot put us on the river before vast numbers of fisherman had been on the river. The generally cool, unpredictable weather created some difficulties, but was well worth it because of the availability of outstanding dry fly fishing.

The next trip to the Bighorn River by IAFFV is scheduled for April 9-14, 2011.

Walt Weirich
Organizer