


In all, Idaho boasts some 4.8 million acres of designated wilderness - that’s about nine percent of Idaho’s total land mass.

Where will your adventures start? Photo credit: Chris Hunt. If you have a stronger back and a real eye for adventure, a multi-day wilderness area backpacking trip, complete with remote fishing in mountain lakes and streams, can become the experience of a lifetime.

If you have a good set of hiking boots, day-trip wilderness adventures are totally doable in Idaho. A lot of folks perceive designated wilderness areas to be restrictive, but, save for some inconveniences (no motors are allowed, for instance, so you’ll have to leave your chainsaw and your ATV at home), wilderness areas are fully accessible to anyone with the will and the means to venture off the beaten path.Īnd, not surprisingly, these designated wilderness areas offer some of the best backcountry trout fishing in the country. Forest Service and the actual “Frank” wilderness, which is also public and also managed largely by the Forest Service (parts of it are managed by the Bureau of Land Management), but under a much more strident set of rules. But it’s one of the more distant small streams a venturing fly angler can get to without having to hike for miles (and I do my share of that, too), and if you really want to get in touch with the wild, holding a 10-inch native cutthroat in your hands is a pretty impressive way to do it.Īs the name might indicate, Boundary Creek flows into the Middle Fork as it marks the boundary between public lands managed by the U.S. And, honestly, its fish aren’t terribly impressive, at least when measured by their size. Photo credit: Chris Hunt.īoundary Creek is a tiny little stream, and as such, it sees very few anglers. Boundary Creek is a great place to start your wilderness fishing adventures. Instead, I was there with a 3-weight fly rod and a box of attractor patterns in search of native west slope cutthroat trout and redband trout, a subspecies of rainbow trout that chooses to stay home in the mountains rather than run to the sea as one of Idaho’s famous B-run steelhead. From there, over the course of several days, boaters, anglers and adventurers of all ilk can literally escape today’s manic realities and enjoy some of the finest floating and fishing left on the planet.īut I wasn’t there to float the Middle Fork through the fabled Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Several years ago, I was drawn to the Boundary Creek put-in on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River - it’s the launching point for the greatest backcountry float trip in the Lower 48. Chris Hunt worked in partnership with Visit Idaho to create this Travel Tip.
