Fly-Fishing the Montana and Idaho Hot Spots

An account of the region's big-hearted rivers reads like an essential's guide to American trout fishing: Big Hole, Beaverhead, Upper Clark Fork, Big Horn, the 250 streams in Idaho's Caribou National Forest, the Salmon, the Boise, and the Payette—all filled with an abundant stock of cutthroat, brook, rainbow, stealhead, and bull trout. In short, more fish-filled real estate than can be explored in a lifetime. You can live a Hollywood dream by angling into Big Sky's Gallatin River, the same spot where A River Runs Through It was filmed. Stay in a streamside cabin on a 160-acre ranch, join an Orvis-trained guide in Idaho's backcountry, challenge Henry's Fork on Idaho's Snake River to live up to its worldwide reputation, or wade into Big Horn River, which boasts over 5,200 trout per mile. Locals insist that 20-inch rainbows aren't uncommon, but catching one is. It's up to you to prove them wrong.