Bighorn Drought: Buy on the Rumor

January 23, 2004 By: Marshall Cutchin

On the heels of reader comments from yesterday about drought in Montana, this Associated Press article on the plight/emergence (take your pick) of the Bighorn River outlines most of the influential factors, the largest of which is water supply. Not only are the sizes of the fish changing, but lower cfs (cubic feet per second) of flow since 2001 has meant that the fish are tougher to catch. Drill down a bit though and you get a taste of the truth. As my friend Phil Gonzalez says in the article, “I’ve been fishing this river 33 years…. I’ve seen a lot of changes. And as long as we have water and aquatic insect life, we’ll have fish.”
Speaking of similarities between sports, how about fishing and stock picking? The crowd psychology of “buy on the rumor, sell on the news” is as applicable in betting on fly fishing destinations as on equities. Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.