Montana

Big country, wild trout, and a river law that belongs to the people.

Montana is the only state in the lower 48 where the headwaters of three of North America's great river systems — the Missouri, the Columbia, and the Saskatchewan — all rise within its borders. That geography is the reason the trout fishing exists, and the reason it matters far beyond the people who live here.

The 1985 Stream Access Law made every navigable river in the state public below the ordinary high-water mark. It is the most generous public-fishing access law in the country, and it is the single fact that most defines the experience of fly fishing in Montana.