Upper Green River

This is the Wyoming Green — the freestone Upper Green in Sublette County, not the Utah tailwater below Flaming Gorge that shares its name. It spills out of the Green River Lakes under the Square Top peaks of the Wind River Range and runs roughly 30 miles of clear freestone through Bridger-Teton National Forest and BLM sagebrush before Warren Bridge, then keeps sliding south past Daniel through private ranch country toward Fontenelle Reservoir near La Barge. Pinedale is the hub for gas, flies, and a bed. Up high it's a wild-trout river of Colorado River cutthroat, brookies, and rainbows that genuinely average 14-16 inches; down low, in the meadow braids and undercut banks of the private float water, it turns into a brown-trout river where 20-inch fish are a real possibility and the occasional 24-incher eats a hopper.

This is a summer-and-fall fishery keyed entirely to snowmelt. The Winds hold snow late, so runoff usually peaks in late May and June and the river doesn't drop into shape until the first or second week of July — try it in June and you're staring at chocolate milk pushing 3,000-plus CFS at Warren Bridge. Once it clears it fishes beautifully: very wadeable around 900 CFS, still wadeable but pushy near 1,400, and floatable in a raft or driftboat above about 700. The thing locals will tell you — and they're not wrong — is that during the late-June-through-July window this river throws Green Drakes, Golden Stones, and Yellow Sallies thick enough to rival Montana, with a fraction of the Madison's crowd.

Access is the honest catch. The Green River Lakes-to-Warren Bridge run is public and generous — Warren Bridge itself has a boat launch, and BLM Road 5201 on the north side serves a string of a dozen developed river accesses. But once you're below Daniel the banks go private fast, which is why the guide operations out of Pinedale exist and why they advertise their private-water leases so heavily. It's remote — roughly 1h40 from Jackson and about 3 hours from the nearest big airport — which is exactly why the fishing stays good.