Montana

Ackley Lake is a 226-acre prairie reservoir southwest of Lewistown, wrapped in its own Montana state park with boat ramps, camping, and easy shoreline access. Heavy annual rainbow plants and a shallow, chironomid-rich basin make it one of central Montana's most approachable and least fly-pressured stillwaters.

Browns Lake is a 549-acre trophy rainbow stillwater in the Blackfoot Valley near Ovando, shallow enough that its fish are almost always within reach of a floating line. Dense chironomid emergences, Callibaetis, and June damselfly migrations over broad weed flats make it one of western Montana's favorite fly-only-minded lakes.

Canyon Ferry Lake is a 33,534-acre Missouri River reservoir spread across the valley floor east of Helena, the largest and most heavily managed trout stillwater in west-central Montana. Fly anglers come for the shallow weedy flats on the north end and a renowned fall shoreline fishery for cruising rainbows.

Clark Canyon Reservoir is a 4,815-acre high-desert impoundment in the Beaverhead Valley that grows Eagle Lake-strain rainbows to trophy size on an enormous scud population. Indicator chironomid fishing from ice-out and summer Callibaetis gulpers over the flats make it one of Montana's most productive stillwaters for fly anglers.

Dailey Lake is a 205-acre natural stillwater tucked under the Absaroka Range southeast of Emigrant, a short drive off the Yellowstone River in Paradise Valley. Heavily stocked rainbows and Big Timber-strain Yellowstone cutthroat — including oversized retired broodstock — make it an underserved alternative to the crowded river below Livingston.

Georgetown Lake is Montana's premier trout stillwater, 2,818 shallow, weedy, spectacularly fertile acres perched at 6,336 feet below the Anaconda-Pintler peaks. Legendary Callibaetis gulper fishing, ice-out chironomid emergences, and June damselfly migrations make it the state's most complete fly-rod lake.

Hauser Reservoir is the middle impoundment of the Missouri River chain below Helena, 3,200 acres of canyon stillwater squeezed between Canyon Ferry and Holter. Rainbows, wild browns and a strong kokanee population share water that fishes like a lake in its bays and like a river at its upper end.

Hebgen Lake is the 12,563-acre Madison River reservoir west of West Yellowstone, and the most famous "gulper" water in the American West. On calm summer mornings, pods of rainbows and browns cruise the Madison and Grayling Arms sipping Callibaetis and Trico spinners within casting range of a wading angler.

Placid Lake is a deep, clear 1,211-acre stillwater in the Clearwater chain of the Seeley-Swan valley, holding westslope cutthroat, rainbow trout, and kokanee. A state park boat ramp, weedy shallow shelves, and far less traffic than neighboring Seeley Lake make it a quiet fly-rod alternative in western Montana.

Quake Lake was born in seconds on an August night in 1959, when an earthquake dropped a mountainside into the Madison River canyon and dammed it. Today the drowned forest holds a wild, unstocked population of rainbows, browns, westslope cutthroat and grayling in one of the most dramatic settings in Montana.