The Blackfoot River runs 132 miles from its headwaters in the Scapegoat Wilderness east of Lincoln, Montana, to its confluence with the Clark Fork near Missoula. Norman Maclean fished it. His son fished it. And in the 1990s, after decades of mining pollution, logging runoff, and dewatering nearly destroyed it, a coalition of landowners, conservationists, and the state of Montana brought it back. The Blackfoot today is a success story and a serious trout river — which are not always the same thing, but here they are.
The River: What It Is
The Blackfoot is a freestone river — snowmelt and rain-fed, not spring-fed or dam-controlled. This means it runs high and off-color from mid-April through late May or early June depending on the winter snowpack, then clears to its characteristic blue-green clarity as summer begins. The watershed is large — nearly 5,700 square miles — and the river's character changes significantly from the remote upper reaches near Lincoln to the lower canyon near Missoula.
The upper river is smaller, more technical, and has the highest density of wild cutthroat. Westslope cutthroat trout — the native species of western Montana — are the signature fish of the upper Blackfoot and its tributaries. The middle and lower river broadens into the classic Big Sky freestone pattern: long riffles, deep bends, gravel bars, and the kind of open-sky view that makes Montana rivers feel enormous even when the fish aren't gigantic.
Species mix: Westslope cutthroat (native, upper river and tributaries), brown trout (dominant in the lower river), rainbow trout, and bull trout (protected, catch-and-release-only, often found in cold tributary mouths). The Blackfoot is one of the few rivers in Montana with a healthy westslope cutthroat population.
A River Runs Through It — The Maclean Legacy
Norman Maclean's 1976 novella A River Runs Through It placed the Blackfoot River on every serious fly fisher's mental map of American water. The 1992 Robert Redford film adaptation amplified that effect internationally. The river Maclean described — the one he and his brother Paul fished in the early twentieth century — was a different river from today's Blackfoot, and the section the film used was actually the Gallatin, not the Blackfoot.
That said, the Blackfoot Maclean knew was real, and the fishing he described was real. The river that decades of degradation nearly destroyed was the same river those fish came from. The restoration effort, which began in earnest in the 1990s and continues today through the Blackfoot Challenge — a collaborative watershed partnership — reclaimed that water. The catch rates and fish populations today are measurably better than they were in 1975 when Maclean published.
The Recovery: What Changed
The Blackfoot's problems in the mid-twentieth century were the standard Montana extraction story: hard-rock mining (the Heddleston and Mike Horse mines in the headwaters leached heavy metals for decades), industrial logging that destabilized banks and increased sedimentation, and agricultural irrigation withdrawals that dewatered sections of river in summer to the point of stranding fish.
The Blackfoot Challenge, organized in 1993, brought together ranchers, timber companies, county commissioners, state agencies, the Nature Conservancy, and tribal representatives to address these problems collaboratively rather than through litigation. The result was voluntary conservation easements, mine reclamation work, irrigation system upgrades to reduce consumptive use, and riparian restoration planting.
The fish responded. Westslope cutthroat counts in tributaries like Monture Creek and the North Fork of the Blackfoot have increased significantly since the 1990s. The lower river's brown trout fishery recovered as water quality improved. The Blackfoot is not a perfect river — there are still sections affected by historical mining — but it is a genuinely good one.
The restoration model matters. The Blackfoot Challenge approach — voluntary collaboration rather than regulatory mandate — has been studied and replicated in watershed restoration efforts across the West. The Blackfoot's story is taught in conservation programs not just because the fish came back, but because of how the process worked.
Fishing the Blackfoot
Runoff season: May – early June
avoid or fish streamers on edges
The Blackfoot runs high and off-color during snowmelt. This is not the season for dry fly fishing on this river. Guides who fish the Blackfoot in late May work the slower water on the edges — the inside of bends, the back channels behind islands, the bank edges where current slows — with large streamers that fish are willing to track out of the turbid water. It's a legitimate technique but not what most anglers come for.
Summer: June – August
classic Montana freestone fishing
The Blackfoot's primary season runs from runoff-clear (usually late June) through August. The river fishes best for dry fly in this window. Salmonfly and golden stonefly hatches move through the canyon in late May to early June for those willing to deal with variable conditions. PMDs, caddis, and Yellow Sallies dominate the summer hatches.
The Blackfoot is primarily floated — it's too wide and deep in most sections for effective wade fishing across the main channel. The float from Lincoln downstream or the Johnsrud Park section to the lower take-outs are the most common trips, with a full-day float covering 8–12 miles of river.
Fall: September – October
best streamer season, fewer people
The Blackfoot in October is what the fly fishing media calls "secret" and what anyone who's fished it knows is not that secret: brown trout pre-spawn aggression, streamer fishing, open days, orange cottonwood leaves. The fish are actively feeding on smaller fish before the spawn, the crowds have thinned, and the water is low and clear enough to read from a raft at walking pace.
Large articulated streamers in olive, black, and brown — worked with aggressive strips along bank structure — produce fish here that are significantly larger than the average summer catch.
Access
The Blackfoot has excellent public access for a Montana freestone river its size. Montana's stream access law (public right to use the river below the ordinary high water mark) applies, and the MFWP maintains numerous fishing access sites throughout the lower canyon. The Johnsrud Park area east of Missoula and the boat launches on Highway 200 provide the main put-in and take-out options for floating anglers.
Wade access on the lower river is more limited — the canyon walls and private land on either bank constrain it. The upper river near Lincoln and the North Fork tributaries are more accessible to foot anglers.
See the Montana regulations guide for current license requirements, season dates, and any special regulations in effect on the Blackfoot or its tributaries.