Wyoming

Cody's home water and the eastern doorstep to Yellowstone — really three fisheries sharing a name: the North Fork freestone down the Wapiti Valley, the quieter South Fork, and the dense Lower Shoshone tailwater below Buffalo Bill Dam. The tailwater is an irrigation river, high and unwadeable May–September and truly fishing October–April; summer trout fishing shifts to the North Fork.

The Upper Green's quieter twin — a willow-lined meadow river dropping out of the New Fork Lakes below the Wind River Range and winding past Pinedale toward the Green near Big Piney. Wild brown trout are the draw (16-20 inches with a real shot at a 5-pounder on fall streamers), with rainbows, brookies up high, and native whitefish throughout. Mostly private ranchland, so it fishes as a float river — but low ranch bridges mean jon boats, not drift boats.

The freestone Upper Green in Sublette County, Wyoming — 30-plus miles of wild-trout water spilling out of the Green River Lakes below the Wind River Range through Warren Bridge and Pinedale ranch country toward Fontenelle. Cutthroat, rainbows, and brookies up high; trophy browns in the private lower float water. Not the Utah tailwater.

The wild, back-of-beyond cousin to the Snake it feeds — a small snowmelt freestone that gathers its North and South Forks deep in the Teton Wilderness and comes together in Buffalo Valley before joining the Snake near Moran. Almost pure Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat water, with mountain whitefish thick enough to rise during a stonefly emergence. The lower river along Buffalo Valley Road is an easy float-or-wade cutthroat float; the upper forks are a backcountry pack trip. No dam to steady it, so it fishes best on the drop from August into September.

The walk-and-wade counterpart to the crowded Snake River float scene in Jackson Hole — a medium freestone that drops out of the Gros Ventre Wilderness past the 1925 slide and its two slide lakes, then runs through the National Elk Refuge and Grand Teton National Park corridor to meet the Snake. Wild Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat eat attractor dries from July into fall once runoff drops; irrigation diversion pulls the lower river down hard by late summer.

The small roadside freestone you drive right past heading south out of Jackson — US-189/191 traces it the whole way down Hoback Canyon to the Snake at Hoback Junction. Wade-only water, mostly 15 feet wide, holding native Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat that charge attractor dries. Most fish run 8–13 inches, with bigger migratory Snake River cutthroat pushing up in late spring and early fall; the early-summer salmonfly and golden stone hatches are the marquee event once runoff drops in late June.

75 miles of Snake River Finespotted Cutthroat water from Jackson Lake Dam through Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole to Palisades Reservoir — the home water of a subspecies found almost nowhere else, fished primarily by drift boat on big attractor dries and terrestrials July through October.

Central Wyoming's string of dam-controlled tailwaters — Miracle Mile, Fremont Canyon, and the Blue Ribbon Grey Reef — supports more than 8,000 wild rainbow trout per mile in the upper Grey Reef reach. Year-round sow bug, scud, midge, and BWO fishing with brown trout streamer windows in fall and spring.

A 50-plus-mile freestone that drops out of the Wyoming Range to meet the Snake at Alpine, the Greys is one of the few genuinely wild cutthroat rivers in the West you can fish from a gravel road. More than 95% of its trout are native Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat, and they come up hard for attractor dries from July through October once spring runoff drops out.

Star Valley's home water — a spring-influenced freestone that runs north out of the Salt River Range through the ranch country around Afton, Thayne, and Etna into Palisades Reservoir. Wild Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat and brown trout in a float-first river most of Wyoming overlooks, with big pre-spawn browns running up out of the reservoir every fall.

Central Wyoming's big freestone out of Dubois — wild Yellowstone cutthroat, browns, rainbows, and brookies on a walk-and-wade upper river of public Game & Fish access areas. Below Crowheart the river enters the Wind River Indian Reservation, where a tribal permit (not a Wyoming license) is required.

The most unusual trout stream in the Lower 48 — a geyser-fed meadow river inside Yellowstone NP with vast White Miller caddis hatches, PMD and BWO windows, and a short fishing season (late May through early July, then September to early November) bracketing a summer that's too warm to fish.

The Firehole's quieter sibling — the other geothermally-influenced headwater that joins it at Madison Junction to form the Madison. Technical spring-creek meadow flats above Gibbon Falls (the biggest fish) and forgiving canyon pocket water below, holding wild brown, rainbow, brook, native westslope cutthroat, and the odd Arctic grayling. A spring-and-fall fishery inside Yellowstone NP.

The marquee Yellowstone cutthroat river — a freestone rolling out of the Absaroka wilderness through the wide-open Lamar Valley, where pure Yellowstone cutthroat sip drakes and hoppers in glassy meadow runs. Sight-fishing on foot for 14-20"+ fish; comes into shape mid-to-late July and stays flash-prone all summer.

The in-park headwater Yellowstone — native cutthroat water from the Yellowstone Lake outlet at Fishing Bridge through the Hayden Valley flats at Buffalo Ford (Nez Perce Ford), then down into the Grand Canyon and Black Canyon toward Gardiner. Walk-and-wade only, strict catch-and-release for natives, and it opens July 15. Quality over quantity: few fish, but a high share run 16–22 inches.