Bitterroot River

The first dry-fly river of the year in western Montana.

The Bitterroot drains the long valley of the same name south of Missoula, flowing roughly 84 miles from the confluence of the East and West forks near Conner down to the Clark Fork at Missoula. The river runs north — the rare Montana freestone that flows uphill on the map.

It is the river that opens the Montana dry-fly season. The skwala stonefly hatch in March and April brings trout to the surface weeks before most of the state's freestones are even fishable, and the Bitterroot has built much of its identity around that window.