The Black River, high in Arizona's White Mountains, is the kind of cold, clear, conifer-shaded freestone you don't expect to find in a desert state — and it's native-trout country at its heart. The upper East and West Forks and the wilderness reaches run through Apache trout water, a story of careful recovery on a fish found nowhere else on earth, and that conservation context should set the tone for everything written about it: this is a place to fish gently and frame honestly, not a numbers river. Browns and rainbows are in the system too, and on the open, generally managed water it's lovely high-country fishing — attractors and a dropper through the runs and pools, a dry to a rising fish in the cool of the day. Much of the best water sits on the Fort Apache and San Carlos reservations and requires the tribe's own permit, separate from a state licence, so sort the permissions out first. It runs cold and bold on snowmelt, settles by midsummer, and fishes beautifully in the long mountain autumn.
- Volcanic
