Little Bighorn River fishing websites to conclude: "However, the Little Bighorn runs entirely within the boundaries of the Crow Reservation and access to it is next to nil." The prospective fisherman should not be misled by the fact that the blue ribbon trout fishery on the Big Horn River, below the Yellowtail Dam, is fished by non-Indians (provided the non-member complies with Montana fishing regulations and laws), though this stretch of the Bighorn River is within the boundaries of the Crow Reservation. In the seminal case of Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544 (1981), the court exempted the Big Horn River from
Little Bighorn River along the tributaries commonly use the shortened version—Little Horn—instead of the more cumbersome name, Little Bighorn. A historical variant name for the Little Bighorn is the Greasy Grass. From the 1500s to the 1800s, the indigenous Crow people knew the river as the Greasy Grass. Crow tribal historian Joe Medicine Crow explained in a 2012 YouTube interview that this name was used by the Crows for the river system because in the river bottoms in the upper reaches of the Little Bighorn and its major tributaries there was abundant grass that would gather heavy dew in the morning which, in