I took one hell of a tour of the state of Utah over a long weekend. Last year, I was asked to come out to Orem (south of Salt Lake City near Provo) to film some fly tying tutorials for Fly Fish Food, as well as spend a day fishing with the primary two guys who run the shop. That trip was basically the appetizer for the main course, which took place this past Thursday-Sunday. Utah runs a program called the cutthroat slam which I was really interested in trying to complete. To do it, you have to catch one of each of the four cuttie subspecies in their natural range, photograph them to document it, and record the catch details in their DNR's online interface. I'd never caught a cutthroat before, and it was definitely a bucket list species for me. I did a lot of research and coordinated with a local fly fisherman out there I knew through social media, and he was a huge help in planning my routes. What made my timeline tricky was that I was supposed to meet the shop guys around 3PM on Friday to head three hours south, camp, and fish with them in an alpine lake all day Saturday. So basically, I had Thursday afternoon, Friday morning, and Sunday morning to complete the slam before I flew back to Ohio.
My flight left Columbus at 8AM on Thursday, with an arrival time in Salt Lake City of about 10AM. The flight was on time and smooth, I grabbed my luggage, got the rental car (with a free upgrade to a small SUV, this would prove important), and headed for Stop #1 to meet up with Pete and try to catch the Bonneville Cutthroat, the state fish of Utah. The stream I selected was really close to where Pete worked, so he took an extended lunch break and we fished for about 90 minutes. We both picked up 3 cutties each after a rough start, so species #1 was checked off the list.
This is where the grueling aspect of my plan started: driving. Lots of it. From where I met Pete to the location for the Yellowstone Cutthroat, by far the most isolated of the fish (only in extreme NW Utah), was a 165 mile drive.
I was warned by Pete that this would probably be the smallest trout stream I had ever fished, and it was. It was extreme tight quarters casting, mostly bow and arrow fly rod casts to really tight locations where fish will hold. I almost immediately spooked a fish when I first got to the stream, shortly after lost a really nice one for that size stream (8-9"), then connected on a small Yellowstone cuttie. Here's the stream size.
Here's where I got a little nuts. I looked at the time and knew it would be tight, but if I turned and burned, I might be able to knock off a third of the species that night. After all that driving to get there, I hopped back in the car and sped off. I managed to see my first pronghorn and run over my first rattlesnake on the way out. The next stop was the Logan River to try and catch a Bear River cuttie before dark.
I made good time, 80MPH speed limits help that, but once I got to the canyon road I got stuck behind a semi. I couldn't pass it with the windy little canyon road, and I kept seeing good pulloffs to access the river, so I scrapped my planned area to fish and took a chance to get off the road and fish sooner with daylight fading. I stuck a good Bear River cuttie on a big dry fly and a smaller one on a dropper nymph to cross off Species #3 in one day.
No rest for the weary, though. My hotel I booked for the night was a solid 3 hour drive from the next stream for Friday morning to catch the 4th and final cuttie species. I sort of had to book it there because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to knock off that 3rd species on Thursday, and if I didn't I'd need to be close to fish it early Friday morning. Friday morning was a 4AM wakeup and that 3 hour drive over to fish for the Colorado River cutties.
It was all paved roads until the last 6 miles...on a nasty little forest service road. Had I not been upgraded to the SUV, I'm not sure I would have tried it. There were rutted out sections, areas with prairie dog dens IN THE ROAD, and lots of rocks in the road to navigate around. When I finally made it, I was in the middle of absolute nowhere.
There was moose sign everywhere. Tracks all over the stream bed. Bigguns.
It didn't take long to find fish, and I lost a nice cuttie in the first run I came to. Shortly after, I connected on a really nice thick Colorado River cutthroat to complete the slam.
Since I had several hours to fish, I worked a stretch of the stream pretty methodically for a change. I picked up a ton of fish, but none bigger than that first one of the morning. The fishing was great and the scenery spectacular, but I had that uneasy "I don't want to walk up on a cow moose" feeling the whole time. Everywhere I looked there were moose tracks and trails leading from the brushy junk up towards the mountain. Right at the end of the stretch I fished, I rolled/stung a stud of a cuttie right under this log that hung over the stream. I saw the fish eat the dropper, set the hook, and moved the fish a few inches before the hook popped out.
My flight left Columbus at 8AM on Thursday, with an arrival time in Salt Lake City of about 10AM. The flight was on time and smooth, I grabbed my luggage, got the rental car (with a free upgrade to a small SUV, this would prove important), and headed for Stop #1 to meet up with Pete and try to catch the Bonneville Cutthroat, the state fish of Utah. The stream I selected was really close to where Pete worked, so he took an extended lunch break and we fished for about 90 minutes. We both picked up 3 cutties each after a rough start, so species #1 was checked off the list.
This is where the grueling aspect of my plan started: driving. Lots of it. From where I met Pete to the location for the Yellowstone Cutthroat, by far the most isolated of the fish (only in extreme NW Utah), was a 165 mile drive.
I was warned by Pete that this would probably be the smallest trout stream I had ever fished, and it was. It was extreme tight quarters casting, mostly bow and arrow fly rod casts to really tight locations where fish will hold. I almost immediately spooked a fish when I first got to the stream, shortly after lost a really nice one for that size stream (8-9"), then connected on a small Yellowstone cuttie. Here's the stream size.
Here's where I got a little nuts. I looked at the time and knew it would be tight, but if I turned and burned, I might be able to knock off a third of the species that night. After all that driving to get there, I hopped back in the car and sped off. I managed to see my first pronghorn and run over my first rattlesnake on the way out. The next stop was the Logan River to try and catch a Bear River cuttie before dark.
I made good time, 80MPH speed limits help that, but once I got to the canyon road I got stuck behind a semi. I couldn't pass it with the windy little canyon road, and I kept seeing good pulloffs to access the river, so I scrapped my planned area to fish and took a chance to get off the road and fish sooner with daylight fading. I stuck a good Bear River cuttie on a big dry fly and a smaller one on a dropper nymph to cross off Species #3 in one day.
No rest for the weary, though. My hotel I booked for the night was a solid 3 hour drive from the next stream for Friday morning to catch the 4th and final cuttie species. I sort of had to book it there because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to knock off that 3rd species on Thursday, and if I didn't I'd need to be close to fish it early Friday morning. Friday morning was a 4AM wakeup and that 3 hour drive over to fish for the Colorado River cutties.
It was all paved roads until the last 6 miles...on a nasty little forest service road. Had I not been upgraded to the SUV, I'm not sure I would have tried it. There were rutted out sections, areas with prairie dog dens IN THE ROAD, and lots of rocks in the road to navigate around. When I finally made it, I was in the middle of absolute nowhere.
There was moose sign everywhere. Tracks all over the stream bed. Bigguns.
It didn't take long to find fish, and I lost a nice cuttie in the first run I came to. Shortly after, I connected on a really nice thick Colorado River cutthroat to complete the slam.
Since I had several hours to fish, I worked a stretch of the stream pretty methodically for a change. I picked up a ton of fish, but none bigger than that first one of the morning. The fishing was great and the scenery spectacular, but I had that uneasy "I don't want to walk up on a cow moose" feeling the whole time. Everywhere I looked there were moose tracks and trails leading from the brushy junk up towards the mountain. Right at the end of the stretch I fished, I rolled/stung a stud of a cuttie right under this log that hung over the stream. I saw the fish eat the dropper, set the hook, and moved the fish a few inches before the hook popped out.
