Where to next??

[tjm]

@Al Agneware any of those Mt. streams timbered enough that they have shade? My memory of the Yellowstone area is ugly desert with no canopy at all, but time has made the memories unreliable and beauty/ugly are subjective.

[mic]

You didn't say if you like big water or small.  How about going east instead of North and West.

[ruthead]

3 hours ago, mic said:

You didn't say if you like big water or small.  How about going east instead of North and West.

Nothin bigger than Taney or the white for sure. But not 4 ft streams either. we've thought about goin east too. Basically lookin at whatever someone suggests. Nothin crowded but not lookin to hike in 4 or 5 miles either. 

[Al Agnew]

On 2/5/2023 at 7:59 PM, tjm said:

@Al Agneware any of those Mt. streams timbered enough that they have shade? My memory of the Yellowstone area is ugly desert with no canopy at all, but time has made the memories unreliable and beauty/ugly are subjective.

The mountain streams coming out of the Absaroka/Beartooth Mountains, tributaries of the major rivers I named, are mostly heavily timbered.  In fact, they are small and difficult to negotiate in many places, with heavy brush and timber hanging over the creek.  Most are full of small, stupid native cutthroat, though one of them I've fished has, weirdly, mostly brown trout up to about 15 inches.  You can drive up some of them through private land which contains some beautiful meadow stretches, but no easy access.  Small rivers like the Boulder and Shields and Gallatin flow though farmland on their lower sections, with banks mostly lined with cottonwoods and occasional bluffs.  Up in the park, there are all kinds of streams.  Some are in heavy forest, some flow through wide open meadows, some in deep, narrow canyons.  Streams like Hellroaring Creek, one of my favorites, are simply gorgeous, flowing through mixed meadows and forest.  On the other hand, the Lamar River up in the Lamar Valley is nearly all meadows, very few trees anywhere...it's good fishing but you have to be on your toes all the time, because if the grizzlies aren't intruding upon your fishing the bison are threatening to trample you...and then you hear a couple wolves howling up on the mountainside and you begin to realize that you might not be the apex predator there!

[Gavin]

There is plenty of good fishing out in Montana, Wyoming, & Idaho but trout fishing is easy and the fish are small. Tarpon & Snook are a heck of allot more fun! Alaska should be on your list too. The rainbows and Grayling are the stars of the show up there. Do a salmon, and a halibut trip to fill a freezer.