Few anglers have more drive then Jeremiah Heitke. Jeremiah and I worked together for the Forest Service Fish and Aquatic Ecology Unit doing bull trout, steelhead, and salmon habitat assessment in the Upper Columbia River Basin. Over the course of three field seasons, we had many epic fishing trips, both during the work week and on our days off.

Jeremiah still works most of the year for the Forest Service, putting his Master’s degree in fishery biology to good use. A truly devoted angler, he takes a couple months off each winter to go on fishing adventures around the globe. A few years ago, he embarked on a near death slog through the mountains of New Zealand in search of monster browns. More recently, he has “dirt-bagged it” in Belize, angling for bones, sharks, and anything else swimming the reefs and flats.

Our trip to the ‘horn offers further proof of Jeremiah’s fly fishing obsession. One day before the trip, he broke his clavicle while mountain biking. Still, Jeremiah accompanied his brother Dustin on the 7+ hour drive to the river and he fished hard for two and a half days.

Originally hailing from Wisconsin, an annual trip to the Bighorn is a tradition for the Heitke family. Located on the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountain region, the ‘horn is a first stop for many anglers heading west.

I fished the Bighorn on my summer treks to the Northern Rockies in high school. My impression of the place kept me from returning until this trip. It’s not that I didn’t have a good time on the river; it’s just there are a lot of other places I prefer. My main objection to the ‘horn is that it attracts some less-than-sporting anglers. A few of the guys you will meet on the river believe that catching big trout is evidence of their manliness and angling amongst these knuckleheads is not always a positive experience.

That said, the Bighorn is an incredible fishery, the benchmark for tailwaters worldwide. Until the mid nineties, the Bighorn supported ridiculously high fish densities (and obscene angling pressure). Drought, whirling disease, and other challenges diminished fish numbers and fewer anglers visited the river during the first few years of the 21st century. However, the river continued to fish well, particularly for 20+ inch trout.

Last season, fish numbers started to rebound. With another good water year this season, everyone is optimistic that this trend will continue.

The surrounding country is scenic in that desolate, northern plains sort of way. Low light casts striking shadows on the steppes and buttes. This part of Montana gives true meaning to “big sky country” and the high clouds can offer as scenic vistas as the Tetons to those who are willing to look up from their strike indicators.

After a decade of drought, minimum flows are a hot topic on the ‘horn. TU just forged a partnership with the Crow nation that aims to maintain a minimum flow in the river. The tribe, which owns a big portion of the Bighorn's water rights, is an important partner in the management of the river. Check out the write-up on page 48 of the spring 2006 issue of Trout magazine.

This season, healthy flows promise rapid-fire angling. Within fifteen minutes of wetting my first line, I caught the biggest brown trout of my season (so far). It was rather anticlimactic. Usually, my biggest fish of the year is the product of a long day headhunting with size 1/0 woolly buggers, or after compulsively stalking the same behemoth for a month.

All I had to do on the ‘horn was string my rod and roll cast a 2 inch long San Juan Worm into a likely run. I was daydreaming when my indicator hesitated slightly. Fortunately, I do this enough that I can set the hook without paying attention, kind of like how one can drive down the highway without thinking about it. The next thing I knew, there was an enormous golden flash as the unhappy toad rolled and darted downstream. It almost felt like I had cheated when I landed this entirely undeserved chunky 20-22” brown.

The Heitke brothers and I continued to catch 18+” browns, rainbows, and cuttbows on the Bighorn for the rest of the trip. And unlike my first fish, many of these trout were earned.

The Heitkes approach the ‘horn differently than most anglers. They enjoy sight fishing the shallow riffles. The brothers slowly patrol the bank, looking for certain shades of color, motion, and body parts (especially tails) in the shelf riffles, often in water less than knee deep. Until you develop an eye for it, these fish are really hard to see. With years of experience on the ‘horn and countless other rivers, the brothers are fish sighting machines. It doesn’t hurt either that both Jeremiah and Dustin are close to six and a half feet tall, allowing them to look down through the glare.

Sighting a trout is half the battle. Then the angler must deliver a nymph rig to the fish without spooking it. Compared to other rivers, this isn’t that hard on the ‘horn, but it does require accurate casting and a good sense of where your fly is during the drift so you can set the hook when the trout takes. Jeremiah is particularly good at this. Despite his broken clavicle, he was picking off nice trout right and left. “There’s one!” he’d say. Two casts later he’d be into the fish. It was pretty cool to watch.

In the morning, the fish were suckers for the big San Juans. There are a lot of aquatic worms in the system and such an imitation is as realistic as any baetis nymph. Dustin started tying 2.5-4 inch long worms on streamer hooks a few years ago and the Heitkes have been fishing them ever since. Towards noon, the fish switched over to small (#20) scuds and sowbugs. Midge larva imitations and micro pheasant tails did the trick later in the evening.

The second day on the river, we rented a drift boat and floated the upper 12 miles of river. Given their predisposition to sight fishing, the Heitkes use the boat exclusively to access good wading sites. We had a blast stalking large fish in skinny water. If you take a look at my photos, you will see a few of the many beautiful trout we caught.

The 13+ hour float was also the perfect cure for my case of burnout. The Heitkes’ enthusiasm is contagious and by the end of the day, I was fired up for the next month on the road. I can’t wait to get down to Colorado and fish harder than I’ve ever fished before. In addition to visiting old haunts, I look forward to hiking into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, exploring a secret spring creek in the Arkansas River Valley, and only time will tell what else.

Please look at these photos. It will be worth your time, I promise! CLICK HERE