In 2018 a range wide review of the genetic relationship between Westslope Cutthroat populations showed that we had been looking at them all wrong. Formerly Westslope Cutthroat had been considered a single subspecies of cutthroat, however this review indicated that the genetic diversity warranted Westslope Cutthroat being reclassified as 9 distinct subspecies. As chance would have it, I had already caught four of the subspecies, however the other five (St. Joe Westslope Cutthroat, NF Clearwater Westslope Cutthroat, Clearwater Headwaters Westslope Cutthroat, Salmon River Westslope Cutthroat and Missouri River Westslope Cutthroat) were another question. So with that I started planning out a trip to chase all of these fish down. As plans unfolded, I also was eyeing what other trout were nearby. I eyed a couple additional Westslope Cutthroat subspecies, as well as Bonneville Cutthroat as my secondary targets. Additionally, it seemed that the was a good chance of catching some Interior Bull Trout, which are genetically distinct from Coastal Bull at some point, but Bull Trout have been notoriously challenging to find for me so I wasn’t banking on that one.
Originally this trip was going to cover 7 days at the end of June and would have aligned nicely with a trip my neighbor Dyllon was doing. However, the dates ended up conflicting with a family vacation and in the end the trip was reduced to five days and was pushed to the first week of July over the busy 4th of July weekend. Luckily these dates worked well with my cousin Derek, who has been my native trout partner in crime for years and the trip could still go forward. The loss of two days meant that the Bonneville Cutthroat were out but if I managed my time well, I should still be able to go after all of the Westslope Cutthroat. The delay ended up being a bit of blessing in disguise despite the potential for crowds as it allowed time for the abnormal heatwave (110+ temps) hitting the west to cool down a bit - into the upper 90’s.
Day 1: Thursday July 1st 2021: With the limited amount of time, early starts were going to be essential on this trip and as such I was up at 3:30AM and on the road by 4:15AM. With the early start, I made great time arriving at Derek’s house in Yakima WA by 7:00AM and after quickly loading up we were on our way. After leaving Yakima and connecting back with I-90 it was a straight shot to the Cutthroat country of the Idaho panhandle.
While my goal was to catch five new subspecies of Cutthroat, I was also hoping to catch a couple repeat subspecies as well. As we had to drive right through the Coeur’ d Alene watershed on our way though Idaho, I set my sights on that as our first stop. As anticipated with the hot weather, the main stem Coeur’ d Alene was packed with rafters and inter tubers trying to escape the heat, so we decided to focus of one of the tributaries. We arrived at the stream at 11:30AM and as I had pre-rigged the rods before leaving home we were on the water and fishing in a matter of minutes. The water was gin clear and deceptively deep and it didn’t take us long to find a nice log jam hole and get into our first cutthroat of the trip. While this first hole was productive, we didn’t find anything over 8” and once the bite slowed we worked our way upstream. Derek stopped to fish some pocket water, while I pushed on to the next hole. I spotted a few nice trout in the tailout, but they were thoroughly disinterested in eating and I kept prospecting. At the next corner I spotted what looked like a nice trout in what looked like a good feeding lane. When I made my first cast I initially thought I was a bit short, but then a fish swirled on my fly and I was tied into a big fish. While the fish wasn’t a jumper it was powerful and put my 2WT to the test making some good runs and almost breaking off in some branches before I eased it into the net.
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| Possibly a cutbow, but definitely big |
The appearance of this fish was certainly unique and while I have never heard of any rainbows or hybrids in the basin, this may have been a cutbow as it had the color of a cutthroat, but was slightly more heavily spotted than normal and had a pink band along the lateral line. I have seen juvenile Westslopes with short pink/orange bands between their parr marks, but they typically fade as the fist mature.
Not far upstream from this big fish, we found nice deep trench and I managed to hook into and land another decent fish, this time with classic Westslope Cutthroat spotting and colors and Derek managed to dust off his casting cobwebs and got his first fish of the trip.
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| Definitely a Cutthroat this time |
After this hole, the river braided and Derek took the larger fork, while I checked out the smaller one. A short walk upstream, I found a nice hole on the side channel and a couple casts in I hooked into another big fish. I thought I had a good hookset, but as I reached for my net I put a little too much tension on the line and unfortunately the fish popped loose. We worked upstream for a few more corners and got a couple more fish, but as we still needed to find a camp site on the St. Joe and wanted to fish there before dark, we had to get on the road again.
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| A last look at our first stream |
Before long, we had crossed over the Bitteroots into Montana, where the weather abruptly changed with dark thunder clouds and rain that quickly dropped the temperature from the upper-90's the upper-70's. After passing through the storm, we refueled in the St. Regis, MT and then headed up Little Joe road and made our way back into Idaho. After braving one seriously dusty road, we rolled into the campground around 5:00pm and we able to find a pretty nice spot. We immediately set to work getting camp setup and making a quick dinner so we could hopefully get in a couple hours of fishing before dark. Unfortunately, before long it became apparent that the thunderstorm had followed us in from Montana and by the time that it finally passed, we maybe had an hour to hour and half to fish. However, that was good enough for me and we headed up the road to see what we could find. Driving along the the river, I didn't see anything that caught my attention, until a few miles upstream, when I spotted a nice run with a good looking cut bank trench at the bottom, which screamed fish me.
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| Fishy looking water on the St. Joe River |
Rods rigged we headed down to the river and got to work. Right off the bat, I caught a small ~ 8" Cutthroat, which put me at ease - one new subspecies down four to go! However, while the cut bank looked great, I only hooked and lost one more fish after 20-30 minutes of fishing hard and was starting to think about moving upstream when a big slap from a beaver made up my mind for me as it had clearly claimed this spot as his.
It turned out that this beaver did me a favor as it didn't take long to see rising trout in the run upstream and after a couple casts I caught a decent 10" Cutthroat. A few casts later, a nice fish rose to my trusty Royal PMX and after a good fit I netted a beautiful 16" Cutthroat. Derek rose a couple fish just above this one, but couldn't get anything to hook up and with the light fading, we had to finally call it a day and head back to camp with plans to come back in the morning.
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| A great way to end the first day - a beautiful native St. Joe River Westslope Cutthroat |
Day 2: Friday July 2nd 2021: We woke up early, made a quick breakfast and broke camp, then headed back to our spot from the night before. Once again we had the spot all to ourselves and this time we didn't waste much time with the cut bank, but headed straight for the run. As with the night before the fish were there and they were eagerly rising to dries. Derek fished from one side of the river, while I took the other side. I started things off with a few decent Cutthroat up to 12", but Derek really got things going when he hooked into and landed a beautiful 16-17" fish. We pulled a good dozen fish out of the hole between us, before the fishing started slowing down and we headed upstream to the next corner. As it would turn out, this spot was even better than the last spot and it seemed that every likely spot would produce a fish. After we had worked the hole with dries and gotten some nice fish, I worked back through it with my nymph rig and picked up a couple more fish. While I knew that we on a pretty tight schedule, the fishing here was hard to beat and the next bend syndrome was in full effect and we kept going upstream.
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| A beautiful morning on the river |
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| A nice size St. Joe Westslope |
This next corner was full of great pocket water and I kept hoping that I would manage to find a fish that would rival the size of my Coeur' d Alene Cutthroat from the day before. I did manage to get one more nice Cutthroat in the 15-16" before I could no longer deny that the day was marching on and had to get on to our next spot try for some Clearwater Headwaters Westslope Cutthroat.
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| Casting to rising trout on the St. Joe |
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| Derek with a nice Cutthroat |
The Clearwater Headwaters Westslope Cutthroat are found in the streams draining into the upper South Fork of the Clearwater and the Upper Selway and hopefully they would be as willing as the St. Joe Cutthroat had been. With several hours of driving ahead of us, we made our when back into Montana and grabbed a quick lunch and gas in Missoula and were back on the road again. I knew going into things this spot was going to be our most rugged and remote and worried about the road, but luckily it was snow free and in great shape. However, the remoteness factor was clearly evident as the miles of dirt road just seemed to go on and on. After a long and dust and bumpy drive, we finally descended back into Idaho and found ourselves driving along the rough and tumble stream. We were lucky when we got to the "campground" that we were able to get the last spot on the stream and as we had had ourselves a late lunch, we opted to just head straight for the water. While the stream was absolutely beautiful, having near white granite sand and rocks, the water in front of our camp the water was not very impressive as trout holding water. However, down at the next corner I could see a nice pool along a cliff face so that was where we headed.
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| Our campsite for the night |
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| The stream |
As it turned out once we got to the spot, we were about to find ourselves in some of the best fishing that I have seen in my life (I don't say that lightly!). First cast for both of us resulted in fish and from that point things did not slow down. The average size seemed to be around 12-14", but there were a few larger fish thrown in and every likely spot would produce at least one or two fish.
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| A Cleawater Headwaters Westslope Cutthroat |
These fish were willing biters too and while Derek stuck with dries, I caught fish on dries, nymphing and tossing streamers. After several hours in and having caught several dozen Cutthroat, a few Redbands (likely steelhead smolts) and a couple Mountain Whitefish, dinner started having a stronger pull than fishing so we called it and headed back to get camp all squared away.
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| A streamer eating Cutthroat |
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| A nymph eating Mountain Whitefish |
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| A beautiful end to the day |
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