As trout season opens around the U.S., a thought experiment on the top 10 flyfishing states in the country, listed in no particular order.
Florida is hands-down the best saltwater flyfishing destination in the States. The Keys still have big, wary bonefish. They have the wily permit. And they are loaded with tarpon. The Everglades, too, have tarpon, plus redfish and snook and even largemouth bass. Swing around to the Panhandle and you’ll find tarpon and reds. But Florida has some inland jewels as well. Largemouth bass are everywhere, in canals, ditches, lakes and ponds. Disney’s lakes supposedly have enormous bass.
I’m biased. I live here now as a southern expat. But check this out: the state has Montauk, Long Island Sound and all the southern beaches of Long Island which, together, might make for the best striped bass, bluefish and false albacore fishing in the nation. The Catskills—with the Beaverkill, the Willowemoc, the Neversink and the branches of the Delaware—offer the nation’s best trout fishing east of the Rockies. And the Adirondacks have earned their spot in flyfishing lore. Then you have the Great Lakes rivers—the Salmon River the most well-known among them—that have runs of salmon and steelhead. These species are not native, of course. But they are there. The state has incredible variety, maybe the best in the nation.
You just have to include this state. The Yellowstone, the Big Horn, the Madison, the Montana portions of rivers in Yellowstone National Park, the Beaverhead, the Missouri, various spring creeks…the list goes on and on. This is the best trout-fishing state in the union.
Pennsylvania
On this list partly for history’s sake. The Letort Spring Run is no longer what it once was. The rapid suburbanization of the area has taken an almost lethal toll. But this is the little spring creek where Vincent Marinaro and Charlie Fox pioneered the American version of fishing “far and fine,” that is, casting light tippets with small flies to big, wary trout. You still have the various spring-fed creeks in the State College area. like the Little Juniata, Penn’s Creek and, of course, Spring Creek, which seems to have thousands of brown trout per mile. Like New York, Pennsylvania has some steelhead and salmon rivers, like Elk and Walnut creeks. The only thing missing in this state is a saltwater scene. William Penn should have just gone ahead and annexed southern New Jersey.
Michigan
The famous Hex hatch, the utter wildness of the Upper Peninsula, the history, the land of Hemingway, Harrison and McGuane…and salmon and steelhead from the Great Lakes.
Oregon
Washington could be here. Both states have runs of wild salmon and steelhead. Both have sea-run cutthroats. I’ll go with Oregon, home of the Clackamas, Deschutes, Klamath and Umpqua rivers…and the writer, David James Duncan.
Alaska
The state has a fishing season of only a very short few months. But, wow, what a few months those happen to be. Salmon, steelhead, resident rainbows, grayling, northern pike, grizzly bears, floatplanes and the last true American wilderness.
Idaho
You have the Big Wood, the South Fork of the Boise and the Big Lost—all great rivers. But what makes Idaho special is two places that offer some of the most challenging trout fishing in the country. Silver Creek is one. The sublime Henry’s Fork of the Snake River is the other. These two rivers are the big leagues.
North Carolina
A surprise? Maybe. And, again, I admit to a bias: I lived there as a kid and learned to flyfish on a farm pond. But North Carolina has tremendous variety. The mountains have trout streams, some with populations of native brook trout. The piedmont area is dotted with reservoirs (like Kerr Lake) and thousands of farm ponds that are filled with largemouth bass and bluegills. The Roanoke River gets an unbelievable run of striped bass every year. And the coast offers one of the few places in the U.S. where you can catch both stripers and redfish.
Colorado
The state is just eaten up with trout water, more than 9,000 miles of it to be (sort of) exact. The Fryingpan, the Gunnison, the San Juan, the Plattes (North and South) and the Colorado rivers are a few of the most famous.
--
Californians, Mainers, carp-enthusiasts and mid-westerners will certainly have issues with this list. Did I miss a state? Did I overrate a state? Let me know which ones and why.
--
My football book: “4th AND GOAL: One Man’s Quest to Recapture His Dream.”
Follow me on Twitter.
