Salt River Fishing Guides and Conditions, Wyoming

About the Salt River

The Salt River drains Star Valley between the Salt River Range and the Caribou Range and joins the Snake at Palisades Reservoir. It is a smaller river than the Snake by an order of magnitude, spring-influenced, and it stays clear when its bigger neighbor is running mud. That combination makes it the fallback fishery for Jackson and Alpine guides during runoff and a destination in its own right for anglers who prefer intimate water.

Above Afton the Salt is a small meadow stream with brook trout, cutthroat and the occasional heavy brown holding under the willow banks. From Afton down through Etna and Thayne it grows into a river you can float in a low-water boat or a raft, winding through hay meadows in tight bends with deep outside corners. Those corners are where the big browns live, and streamer fishing along them in the fall is the reason a lot of anglers come back. The lowest reach near Palisades holds fish that run up out of the reservoir.

The Etna gauge sits near the bottom of the valley and reflects the whole drainage. Roughly 300 to 900 cfs is a comfortable floating range; under about 250 the meadow bends get thin and skinny for a boat and the wade fishing gets better; a spring peak well above 2,000 turns it into a brown, brushy hazard course. Because the river cuts through soft meadow soils, wood and new cut banks move around every high-water year.

Afton, Thayne and Alpine have lodging and shops. Much of the valley is private ranch land, so float access and public easements matter more here than on federal-land rivers.

Access

Upper valley bridges south of Afton: small-stream wade access on public easements.
Afton area accesses: put-ins for the meadow floats through the middle valley.
Thayne and Bridger Highway crossings: mid-valley access points, low-water boat and raft launches.
Etna Access: near the gauge, the standard lower takeout.
Alpine and the Palisades inlet: mouth-of-the-river access to reservoir run-up fish.
Respect posted private land; ask locally before assuming a crossing is open.

Seasons

March through May: pre-runoff streamer window; the Salt clears before the Snake does.
June: high water, but often the only clear option in the area.
July through September: prime meadow float season, cutthroat on dries and browns in the corners.
October and November: the best big-brown month, streamers and cold mornings; winter is quiet and mostly closed water.