A Trip Out West - Any Advice?

[hoglaw]

My mom and stepfather are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary in 2013. She wants all three of her kids and their significant others to go with her to Wyoming/Idaho/Utah for a week this summer to float, fish, hike, and stay in a cabin. My sister just finished her PhD in biochemistry at Colorado State (had to brag) and she and her husband do a lot of floating and trout fishing out there, so if they dictate the terms of the trip I'm okay with that. My little brother travels the world rock climbing, so I don't want him to have much of a say in it or I'll be miles from water. I, obviously, want to do as much trout fishing as possible. Preferably hike-in small stream big fish stuff like I used to do in Creede Colorado.

I know snow melt can blow out rivers in the early summer, but I don't know how that varies from state to state. I'd like to go somewhere that's off the beaten path a little and has a good number of options for stream and river fishing. Drive to trail head hike into the river kind of stuff where I can get my girlfriend on some real western trout fly fishing. Anyone have much experience out there? I don't really know where to start researching other than to just google stuff, but if anyone could provide me with some decent starting points I'm all ears. The perfect solution would be somewhere where my brother could climb, somewhere with a bigger river where we could take a raft either for white water, fishing, or both, and somewhere with lots of small stream options where my girlfriend and I could cover a bunch of water over the course of four or five days. The other benefits would be maybe a ski village type environment not too far away where we could have some good dining options and my mom could stay entertained...but let's focus on the fishing here. I can make the other stuff work.

[Gavin]

Sounds like Bozeangeles is out...Might check out some of your options around Red Lodge..the Beartooths and the Stillwater River are just west of there. Tom Hargrove @ Hargrove's Fly Shop in St. Louis would be a good one to ask about that area.

[Greasy B]

I can second Gavin's suggestion, you can't beat that area of south west Montana for a great western trout fishing experance. With so many great streams the only real problem is narrowing your countless choices to something manageable.

[dgames]

Wind River range in Wyoming might be a good option. World class climbing and scenery and plenty of streams off the beaten path. I don't know about cabins there, the only time I went we backpacked.

[Outside Bend]

Jackson can be a bit pricey, but it has a lot of the amenities you're looking for. PM headed your way.

[Al Agnew]

Well, since I live part time in Livingston, MT, I may be a little prejudiced, but I don't think you can beat that area due to the variety of stream fishing, the hiking, and the other amenities. The only problem is that a lot of people visit the area...it isn't an unknown place.

Snow melt...it depends upon the snow pack this winter, and a little bit on the weather during the spring. With a normal snow pack, the streams in SW MT will blow out sometime in the early part of May, and remain unfishable until about the first of July. Warmer than normal spring weather will start the melt early and if it remains warm, it will be over with faster. A heavy snow pack, like there was winter before last, will keep some streams too high until mid-July. However, your options aren't totally gone. There are some streams that don't flood as much and the high water doesn't last as long. The Madison stays fishable and floatable for much of a normal spring, for instance, and a little farther away, the Big Hole often doesn't flood until mid to late May, and gets back down fairly early. And if all else fails, the Big Horn, being dam controlled, will still be fishable.

But your best bet is always to wait until mid-July, unless you're flexible and can watch the river conditions. I've seen the streams in SW MT be fishable by the third week in June a few times.

In the area around Livingston, assuming you're there when everything is fishable, you have the Yellowstone River, with over 80 miles of floatable trout water within an hour or less of Livingston. You have the Boulder River, which is a nice whitewater type float when it's still high but fishable, and a great wading river when it's lower. There's the Shields River, a nice little wading stream that's often overlooked. Less than an hour away, there's the Gallatin River, a little bigger but still wadeable. For hike-in fishing, there's the upper end of the Boulder, the West Boulder, and several small streams coming out of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area and flowing into the Yellowstone...Pine Creek, Mill Creek, Six Mile Creek, and some nice lakes back in the wilderness. Less than two hours away are all the good streams in Yellowstone Park, and the Madison. And if you want to spend the money, the famous spring creeks, Nelson's, Armstrong's, and DePuy's, furnish great fishing for wild fish, limited rods per day, for $100 a person. They are always fishable.

There's all kinds of hiking in the area, from easy day hikes to serious backpacks. Livingston has nice restaurants, or you can visit Chico Hot Springs, which has a huge swimming pool of hot spring water (it isn't treated, it's just drained every evening and re-filled the next morning), nice old time type rooms, and a great restaurant. They offer horseback rides and guided hikes. Bozeman is a half hour away, and has everything that any large city has in the way of restaurants and shopping.

Plenty of opportunity for guided fishing, both float trips and wade trips...and there's a place in Livingston that rents rafts and kayaks if you want to do it yourself on the Yellowstone.