Madison River

The premier Dillon-area tailwater below Clark Canyon Dam, famous for oversized, technical brown trout in tight, willow-lined water. Cold summer releases keep the upper river fishing all season, but heavy irrigation dewatering and repeated drought closures shape the lower river.

The 'Last Best River' — 153 miles of classic Montana freestone from the Beaverhead Mountains through Wisdom, Wise River, and Glen to its confluence with the Beaverhead at Twin Bridges. Home to the lower 48's only fluvial Arctic grayling population.

Bozeman's spring-influenced backyard brown-trout stream — a small, weedy, serpentine meadow river that forms east of town and joins the West Gallatin near Manhattan. A separate drainage from the famous Gallatin canyon freestone: wade-only, technical, spring-creek-style fishing for wild browns, rainbows, and whitefish.

The Gallatin runs through Yellowstone NP and the Gallatin Canyon along Highway 191 — wadeable freestone water for rainbows, browns, cutthroat, and whitefish, with a strong salmon fly hatch in late June and excellent post-runoff dry-fly fishing into October.

A big, slow valley river running 77 miles from Twin Bridges to Three Forks, where it joins the Madison and Gallatin to form the Missouri. Modest trout numbers but genuinely large browns on streamers in fall — a spring-and-fall fishery plagued by late-summer irrigation dewatering and drought closures.

The small water in the neighborhood of giants — a partial tailwater below Ruby Reservoir near Alder that runs brushy and cold down to Twin Bridges, famous for technical, willow-lined brown trout you cover with a 5-weight, and for the decade-long stream-access fight over its bridge crossings.

The longest undammed river in the lower 48 — 692 miles from headwaters inside Yellowstone NP through Paradise Valley to its confluence with the Missouri in North Dakota. The trout water runs roughly from Gardiner through Livingston and Big Timber, with the post-runoff salmon fly hatch in late June and consistent dry-fly fishing through October.

The Yellowtail Dam tailwater — 13 miles of fly fishing gold from the Afterbay to Two Leggins. 3,000-5,000 trout per mile, year-round consistent flows, and the West's most reliable sow bug and PMD fishery.

Western Montana's home water — 84 miles of cottonwood-bottomed valley fishing for wild rainbows, browns, and native westslope cutthroat. Famous for the March-April Skwala stonefly hatch and a long dry-fly season from spring through October.

The freestone river Norman Maclean made famous, rebuilt over 30 years of restoration into a genuinely wild fishery for westslope cutthroat, browns, and rainbows east of Missoula. No dam on the mainstem, a legendary June salmonfly hatch, and a boulder-strewn canyon corridor that fishes best from a drift boat.

Montana's longest river fishes like three waters in one — a skinny Superfund-recovery meadow stream up around Deer Lodge, a legitimate mid-size freestone through Missoula, and big float water down to St. Regis. Wild browns up top, 16-17" rainbows and cuttbows below town, and a marquee mid-September dry-fly window.

The big glacial-green valley river formed where the three forks meet near West Glacier, running through the Flathead Valley into Flathead Lake and continuing below Kerr Dam. A native westslope cutthroat dry-fly float up top, northern pike water down low.

Montana's biggest tailwater, running cold and clear below Libby Dam in the state's far northwest corner. A float-and-dry-fly fishery for wild native redband rainbows, managed as a trophy reach with a 28-inch minimum below the dam.