5 Remote Trips for Backcountry Anglers

It’s never a bad idea to plan a new adventure. Win, lose, or draw, it’s going to be an experience that you’ll carry with you for the rest of your life, regardless of how many fish you catch or how comfortable you are during the experience. That’s the beauty of backcountry angling. It’s hard, rewarding, memorable, maybe a little painful, and always worth it.

As summer begins to set in, we’re entering into the prime season for backcountry travel as alpine snows continue to melt and flood conditions recede in high-altitude bodies of water. In another article, we talked about some tips for fishing in the backcountry, but this time around we’re going to highlight a few areas that should be on anyone’s to-do list. We live in an incredible country with more public land than most of the world, and it’s high time we started taking advantage of these areas. 

There’s some sort of saying about the journey being the destination and nothing sums that up quite like backcountry angling—it also doesn’t hurt that the destination probably means solitude, hungry fish, and incredible scenery. Here are five trips for backcountry anglers.

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Wind River Range, Wyoming

If you haven’t gotten the memo, something’s happening in Wyoming. It’s getting quite a bit of attention from anglers around the world, for good reason. And, while this may make some locals nervous, it’s probably unwarranted because the state boasts more than 42,000 square miles of public land—more than 50 percent of the entire state. In other words, Wyoming isn’t going to be crowded anytime soon, regardless of how many people post about it on Instagram.

Nothing represents the beautiful isolation of Wyoming more than the Wind River Range. This remote stretch of mountains, with peaks over 13,000 feet, offers plenty of opportunities for rainbows, cutthroats, and even golden trout as well in countless alpine likes, creeks, and rivers like the Green River, Wind River, New Fork, and many more. With more than 2,000 miles of streams and rivers, there’s no bad place to wet a line.

Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana

Montana has plenty of iconic fishing destinations, which means it can get crowded on the water from time to time—but, the Bob Marshall Wilderness offers solitude and space because of its sheer size. At more than one million acres, you could spend a lifetime fishing this incredible area, which runs all the way to Glacier National Park, and still not experience it all.

The Flathead River runs through the majority of the wilderness area, and offers some of the best fishing you can find anywhere on the planet. These are wild trout that don’t get fished much, so expect plenty of bites from big fish—most commonly the westslope cutthroat. “The Bob,” as it’s called, is also one of the few places you can legally target bull trout, which can easily exceed 30 inches in length. You’ll need a special permit, though. This area is one of the most remote areas in the lower 48 (be sure to bring bear spray or even a side arm; this grizzly country) and it's a sure-fire way to find adventure on foot or by floating the Flathead via packraft.

Hunter-Frying Pan Wilderness, Colorado

Of course, remote mountain ranges are remote for a reason—they’re difficult to access, and require a true commitment to make the most out of a trip. If you’re looking for a good balance of remote wilderness and accessibility, the Hunter-Frying Pan Wilderness offers a bit more opportunity within just a few hours of Denver. 

This 86,000-acre wilderness area offers everything you’d want, with 65 miles of trails that weave through the Williams Mountains. Hunter Creek and the Frying Pan River are great options for fly fishing, but countless creeks and alpine lakes are packed full of fish as well—including browns, rainbows, cutthroats, and the occasional brookie. 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee/North Carolina

Moving a little bit closer to civilization, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the perfect adventure for anglers who are newer to backcountry travel, don’t want to run from grizzlies, or simply want incredible fishing east of the Mississippi River. This park is massive for the south-eastern U.S. (or any area, for that matter) at more than 500,000 acres, and offers up more than 300 trout streams covering more than 700 miles. 

 

The beautiful thing about GSMNP is you make it into any trip you’d like. With milder temperatures compared to Wyoming or Montana, there’s a longer season, and the park has easily accessible waters as well as remote streams only accessible by backcountry travel. There’s no better place to use nature as a playground and explore hundreds of trout streams at the same time. 

Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota/Wyoming

We thought we’d end this list with one of the most overlooked destinations in the country—the Black Hills of South Dakota. Most anglers don’t associate “backcountry” with the Midwest, but the Black Hills offer hundreds of trout streams and lakes tucked against this stunning area. It’s very accessible, too, but also offers some areas off the beaten path—plus, as a hidden gem, it won’t be hard to dodge the crowds. 

The beauty of the Black Hills, too, is its mild temperatures—not as cold during the winter, and not as warm during the summer, it’s a potentially year-round destination. Although, March through November is probably the best time to plan a trip. Explore more than 450 miles of trails in the area, and target browns, rainbows, brookies, bass, pike, and panfish while you’re at it. 

You’ll notice we didn’t include many specifics on this list, and that’s for a few reasons. Mainly, these are massive areas with hundreds of trails, rivers, creeks, and lakes, and it’d be impossible to write a blog that gives you any sort of tangible advice. So, in that spirit, we’ll include a few links below to books that’d do a much better job. Just think of this as inspiration.

Wind River Range: “Walking the Winds: A Hiking and Fishing Guide to Wyoming’s Wind River Range” by Rebecca Woods

Bob Marshall Wilderness: “Flyfisher’s Guide to Montana” by Chuck Robbins or, just pick up this topo from National Geographic. 

Hunter-Frying Pan Wilderness: “Flyfisher’s Guide to Colorado” by Marty Bartholomew

Great Smoky Mountains: “The Ultimate Fly-Fishing Guide to the Great Smoky Mountains” by Don Kirk

Black Hills: “Trout Fishing in the Black Hills” by Steve Kinsella

Second, the beauty of backcountry fishing is that it’s up to you to figure it out. Sure, some people have great advice, but these are remote, wild places and there are an infinite number of ways to experience them. So, pick a spot on a map and give it a shot. You can’t go wrong.