North Platte River

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 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.

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.

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.