Colorado Adventure: Part 1 - Off to the races

I have been fascinated with the diversity of native trout since my childhood and when James Prosek's book Trout and Robert Behnke's book Trout and Salmon of North America came out I decided to take it upon myself to document as many of the native species as possible. This included all of the subspecies of Cutthroat Trout and way back in 2009, I believed that I completed that leg of my quest and that I had caught all 12 of the extant subspecies of Cutthroat Trout plus the closest remnants of the extinct Alvord Cutthroat as well. However, shortly after catching my last subspecies (the Paiute Cutthroat), the classification of Cutthroat in Colorado was up ended by a genetics study. This study revealed several key findings, first was that instead of the four subspecies (Colorado River, Greenback, Yellowfin and Rio Grande), there were in fact 6 native to Colorado, including two that had been previously unrecognized (San Juan and Green River (aka blue lineage Colorado River Cutthroat)). The second finding came as a devastating blow to Cutthroat conservation and showed that what everyone had believed were Greenback Cutthroat were in fact Colorado River or Green River Cutthroat and only a single population in tiny Bear Creek harboring a few hundred Greenbacks remained. This effectively reset the Greenback Cutthroat recovery efforts and also meant that I had another subspecies to pursue once a viable population became established. That list continued to grow too, as the San Juan Cutthroat was rediscovered in 2018 and genetics showed the instead of the traditional 14 subspecies of Cutthroat there were in fact 25 (see Trotter et al. 2018). 

Several years ago I was finally able to start documenting many of these newly recognized subspecies and going into this summer my last two remaining Cutthroat (the San Juan and Greenback) were both in Colorado. At the start of August I successfully checked the first of these two subspecies off my list, when I caught the once believed extinct San Juan Cutthroat. After that outing, I was unsure whether or not I would be able to get back to Colorado, but the opportunity to return presented itself at the end of August and I started planning my adventure. While I initially just thought this trip would include a quick excursion for Greenbacks, it evolved into an excursion for five varieties of Cutthroat spread across the state including the Rio Grande Cutthroat, Hayden Creek Cutthroat, Green River Cutthroat, Colorado River Cutthroat and Greenback Cutthroat.

Friday August 25th: With plans in place, before I knew it I was in Colorado and by noon on I was on the highway cruising south towards the native range of the Rio Grande Cutthroat. While I have caught Rio Grande Cutthroat on several occasions, all of those were in New Mexico and most of the fish that I had caught were large spotted Rio Grande Cutthroat from the Pecos River drainage. As such, on this trip I was hoping to document the finer spotted form from the main Rio Grande drainage, as the existing photos I have are dated and of marginal quality. I was fortunate to hit minimal traffic getting out of the Denver metro area and made great timing as I traveled from the plains, east over the Rockies, through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and into the arid San Luis Valley. This meant that by 4:00pm I was turning off the highway in the San Juan Mountains and towards the trailhead to a stream that was reported to have a robust population of Rio Grande Cutthroat.

The trailhead

Anticipation was running high as I drove up the forest service road to trailhead leading me to miss a sign for the trail and take wrong turn that cost me several minutes of precious fishing time. However, after a bit of hack tracking, I found the right road and before long I was pulling into an empty parking lot at the trailhead. With the area completely to myself, I immediately threw on my wading boots, got my pack loaded, rigged up my trusty fiberglass 1WT with a Royal PMX and Blowtorch nymph dropper and hit the trail. For the first little bit, the trail proceeded on a gentle incline as it progressed along a decommissioned road through alpine meadows and scattered spruce and fir stands. I hiked in complete silence that was only interrupted when I spooked a group four Grouse that snapped me out of my reverie about a half mile in.

  

A well camouflaged Grouse up in a Spruce Tree

The gentle incline did not last for long, and while the hike wasn't overly strenuous, I was certainly not acclimated to the altitude and at nearly 11,000 feet even the moderate incline left me huffing and puffing as my sea level lungs struggled to get enough oxygen. This slowed my progress down significantly and as a result while I had expected to reach the the barrier isolating the Cutthroat from nonnatives downstream within a half an hour, in reality it ended up taking me at nearly a full hour.

The barrier separating the Rio Grande Cutthroat from nonnatives downstream 

Luckily, after reaching the top of a particularly steep section at the barrier, the trail leveled off and I made much better time as I covered the last stretch, entered the San Juan Wilderness Area and approached the meadows above the falls.

Entering the wilderness

With daylight ticking away, I broke from the trail as soon as I came within sight of the meadows and made a beeline for the sound of running water. The creek turned out to be much smaller than it appeared in the satellite imagery I had poured over when planning the trip, but it was running crystal clear and appeared to have ample holding water. It also appeared that I had been lucky enough to emerge just downstream of a particularly nice looking pool.

The stream

With a nice pool right in front of me, I got my rod ready, positioned just downstream and made my first cast of the trip. I had decided prospect the tail out first and my fly barely had time to drift a few feet downstream when a Cutthroat swirled on the Royal PMX and I was hooked into my first Cutthroat of the trip. With the tight quarters the trout had nowhere to go and after just a moment of thrashing I brought a beautiful Rio Grande Cutthroat to the net.

First cast - first fish of the trip!

That first fish was indicative of the rest of the day, as every lie deep enough to hold a trout did and these were some of the most beautiful Cutthroat one could hope to find anywhere. As with the first fish, these Rio Grande Cutthroat preferred to hold in the slowest water in the tail outs which also made them particularly spooky. As such, with the tight conditions it took slow progress, a low profile and solid presentation to get results but after after covering about an 1/8 mile of stream I had caught about a half dozen decent Cutthroat already. It was at this point I came upon the best looking hole of the day and after careful observation I spotted several trout holding under a spruce tree and sipping occasional ants or caddis falling into the water.

Several Rio Grande Cutthroat holding in the tailout

The hole was fairly exposed and given how spooky the fish were, I knew I would only get one or two chances. I positioned myself slightly downstream and tucked behind a small tree to be obscured from sight and got a cast right into the seam. While it wasn't the biggest of the bunch, one of the Cutthroat broke away from the group and slowly but deliberately rose to take my dry fly. When the trout turned with my fly in its mouth, I set and got a solid hookup. Despite trying to get it away from the other fish, the trout thrashed on the surface a few times sending the rest fleeing for cover as I pulled it downstream and into my net.

My one Rio Grande Cutthroat from the hole

Once again this was an exceptionally beautiful Cutthroat, with the yellows and oranges of a sunset and after a quick photo and a few brief moments of admiration I watched it slip back into the current and dart for cover. By the time that I released this fish, several of the other fish had returned to their holding lies, but their air raid sirens were apparently still blaring and given that my time on the water was extremely limited I opted to push on upstream instead of waiting for them to settled down and start feeding again. 

The sun getting low on a nice stretch of stream

Over the next few bends, I picked up a handful of additional Rio Grande Cutthroat in the 6" to 8" range, with most taking the dry fly, although a couple did go for the dropper. Before long I came to a straightaway with a nice deep pocket next to a rock that looked particularly fishy. With the glare on the water I couldn't see any fish, so I made a blind cast and as the fly reached the end of the pocket a Cutthroat rose to the dry and immediately put a nice bend in my 1WT. Once again the tight quarters gave the fish nowhere to run and after a quick fight, I netted a largest Rio Grande Cutthroat I had seen so far.

The fish of the day a beautifully colored "monster" Rio Grande Cutthroat

The colors on this fish were absolutely amazing, with deep orange and bronze tones that popped in the fading sunlight. One top of that the spotting was exceptional, with almost no spots on the front two thirds of the body, but dense spot one the back third and caudal fin. After releasing my 'big' Rio Grande Cutthroat, the sun was starting to inch closer to the horizon and I knew that my time was limited, so I pressed on upstream to cover a few more holes while I still had some light. However, I hadn't traveled far when the creek broke into two forks and got substantially smaller. I pushed on for a couple more bends on the bigger fork, but not seeing much in the way of good holding water, I made the call to head back downstream and fish the stretch between where I started and the falls before hiking out. After reaching my starting point, I dropped my fly in each of the deeper pockets I came to and whenever my fly landed on the mark, I was almost always rewarded with a rise and managed to catch a couple more small Cutthroat. 

A set of falls on the creek

As I approached the falls, the gradient picked up and the creek tumbled over a series of cascades interspaced with deep pools. While this looked like it would be one of the best spots on the creek, I only managed a sole small Cutthroat out of the pools before I finally had to admit that my time was up and make my back to the trailhead.

Sunset over the meadows, time to hit the trail

The hike out in the fading light of the evening was gorgeous, as I passed through meadows with deer emerging from cover to graze before the sun fell behind the peaks. After paying my dues on the way in, the hike out was all down hill and as such I made much better timing and was back to the car before I knew it. The evening on the stream was far better than I could have hoped and certainly got the first leg of the trip off to an exceptional start. While I would have loved to spend more time in the area, I still had many miles to cover ahead of me I had to get right back on the road headed for a small stream in the Arkansas drainage. 

As I drove through the San Luis Valley, lightning lit up the night sky and I hit intermittent downpours along the way. However, as I pulled into the campground near the trailhead for my next stream around 11:00 PM these intermittent showers had turned to a steady heavy rainfall. As such, instead of setting up the tent in dark and pouring rain I opted to hunker down in the car for the night and hoped that the morning would bring better weather.