The Blackfoot is the river Norman Maclean made everybody want to fish, and the remarkable thing is that after a century of mining abuse it came back. Westslope cutthroat and rainbows hold in the canyon pocket water and the long valley runs, and there are bull trout you must never target — they're protected, and the fishery's recovery rides on them. It's a wade-and-float freestone that fishes best from July on, once the runoff has come and gone. Big country, big sky, and a fish or two that feels like a small redemption.

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