What Is Unpressured Water?

Unpressured water, in fly fishing, is a stretch other anglers are not already fishing. The trout have not been shown the same flies all morning, and you are not queued behind another boat at the ramp.

Montana Fly Fishing Lodge uses the term for a scheduling choice. Guides spread guests across several rivers and private creeks so the day's fishing is not on water that has already been worked that morning. The rivers are the Yellowstone, the Stillwater, the Boulder, the Bighorn, the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone, and the Shoshone, plus East and West Rosebud, Rock Creek, Red Lodge Creek, 4.5 miles of private spring creek at Spring Creek Lodge, and a separate half mile of spring creek at the Flagship Lodge.

That is not the same claim as "nobody else is allowed on the river." The Yellowstone and the Bighorn are public water. The private spring creek at Spring Creek Lodge is not. On the public rivers, unpressured means the guide picks a stretch and a day when the traffic is light, and can move the group to a different river when a famous run is crowded.

The map of those waters is on Our Waters.