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I cannot speak for the west but I enjoy fishing in solitude most of the trips I do here in MA. I fish smaller streams or off times mostly. I fish the tailwaters only occasionally, and never expect solitude on those trips, and stay away from the "Hot" spots (the Pipe, or Y pool of the Swift have never seen my fly). I usually do not start to seriously seek the trout until after the worm chuckers have concluded the streams are all fished out (usually about 12 hours after the last hatchery truck rolls out), rarely fish the "bridge" pools and always walk the extra mile. I have found that fishing on the so called "marginal" trout waters is often much more productive than fishing the Gems and is always far less crowded. In general the fisherman I do meet share my desire for quietude and will quietly disappear if they come upon me, as I do if I come upon them. Solitude is as much a state of mind as it is a place. I can find solitude 1 mile from my home, less than 20 miles outside Boston. I kayak for Bass and last summer even though I was within shouting distance of developments and roads the river greenway shielded all and in over two dozen trips from May through October I saw one 12 or 13 year old kid fishing from the bank. No other Kayaks, fisherman or distractions.

Wilderness is a funny thing, the more we call it wild the more likely it is to be crowded. In West Virginia where I went to college there were two designated wilderness areas within an hours drive, Dolly Sods and Otter Creek. On any gven weekday and on every weekend 52 weeks a year, I could absolutely guarantee that you would be among many people in either of those areas, especially Otter Creek which had only one trail you were pretty much trapped on by the Rhododendrons. The access points looked like mall parking lots and the people were all from the nearby cities dressed to look as though they were born in log cabins a hundred miles from a dirt road (all abercrombie and fitch of course, there is nothing more pathetic than a perfectly tailored, starched collar flannel shirt with the sleeves still crisply creased over designer jeans and $500 mountain climbing boots with nary a scuff on them). They were often loud and always in groups and always in a rush to get as much of the wilderness experience as they could cram into their weekend jaunt.

Less than 1/2 milke away in the plain old National forest I could spend weeks and never see a soul. Needless to say I (and most of the locals) avoided the "wilderness" as much as I could. It did always amaze me that those people seeking the wilderness experience in Dolly Sods or Otter Creek had to drive through 50 miles of real wilderness (all public NationalForest to boot) to get there, they watched the real wild places through their car window on their way to the wilderness experience equivalent of fast food. The plain old woods was always much more restful, and the fishing was better.