Colorado Adventure Part 4: Colorado River Cutthroat Contingencies

My original plans for this day had been to fish a high elevation stream that had come highly recommended, but required a rough gravel road with pass at nearly 12,500 to reach. Unfortunately, this plan was upended right before I left when I friend sent me a picture of a snow drift still blocking the pass, that was highly unlikely to melt out before would be trying to access the area. As such, I was forced to look elsewhere to try to find some Colorado River Cutthroat. While most think of the Colorado River Cutthroat as occupying vast parts of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, there are two distinct lineages of these fish, representing separate subspecies (Green River Cutthroat and Colorado River Cutthroat). The blue lineage which I had caught the previous day (see here), is found in the Green, White and Yampa River drainages of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. While the true Colorado River Cutthroat or green lineage was historically native to the upper Colorado, Gunnison and Dolores watersheds of Colorado and a small part of Utah. In addition to their native range, Green River Cutthroat, primarily from Trappers Lake were stocked extensively throughout the range of the Colorado River Cutthroat and as a result of that and other factors Colorado River Cutthroat currently only occupy around 3% of their native range. I had once believed that I had caught this fish on a previous trip, but genetics revealed that the population I had caught them from were in fact introduced Green River Cutthroat and while the Hayden Creek Cutthroat also checked the box, I really wanted to catch some of these fish west of the continental divide. However, the mix of nonnative Green River populations and relatively low number of true Colorado River Cutthroat populations meant that my options were quite limited, but after a fair bit of digging I landed on a stream in the sage brush country in the northern part of the upper Colorado River watershed that was reported to have a decent population of Cutthroat.

Sunday August 27th: While I had settled into my tent under a cloudless starry sky , in the middle of the night my sleep was interrupted by the crack thunder. This was followed by more, which got progressively closer until the storm was nearly on top of me and it started pouring. With the tent extremely exposed and the thunderstorm growing closer by the moment I decided to relocate and for the second night in a row took refuge in the car while a storm raged on outside.

After yet another less than restful night, I was up early and by 7:00 AM I was heading over to the creek with my rod in hand. Unfortunately, what I found when I reached the creek did not look promising. For one thing the creek was much smaller than I had expected, although certainly large enough to hold fish. Most troubling though, the creek was silted in with little in the way of any potential holding water and on top of that it was extremely off color after the thunderstorm the previous night.

Not very promising...

Despite the less than promising conditions, I decided to give the creek a fair shot before writing it over and start prospecting any of the deep holes I could find. However after covering nearly a mile of stream until I ran into a private property boundary and the only signs of life I had seen were several cows standing in the creek adding to the silt issues.

The source of the problem - cows

While there may have been a viable Cutthroat population further upstream, there was no access through the private property to the forest service lands above and the stretch I was on was a complete bust, This meant it was back to the drawing board. Fortunately, while I was looking up this stream I had noted a few other spots as backup streams and with a full day ahead of me I quickly headed back to the car, broke camp and hit the road once more. I landed on heading west towards the edge of the desert on the Colorado plateau, where there was a group of several streams reported to hold pure populations of Colorado River Cutthroat not too far off I-70.

Cruising through Glenwood Canyon heading west

By 10:30AM I was pulling off the interstate and cruising up the road towards the first of my back up streams, but when I was just 2 miles short of the stream I ran into a major hang up the road was gated with no public accessed due to natural gas extraction in the area. While I may not be able to reach the tributary where a pure population of Colorado River Cutthroat was supposed to resided, I did find access to the mainstem of the creek just downstream of the gate and decided to give it a quick try.

The country at stream #2

The water on the stream looked great, seemed to be cool enough, but after covering a 1/4 mile I hadn't seen the slightest sign of trout and with the day ticking by I decided to cut my losses once again and head for another nearby stream. Based on the research I had done, this stream was reported to hold 151 to 400 pure Colorado River Cutthroat per mile and I had high hopes as I drove up the gravel road and pulled off at one of the stretches of public land to try my luck. Unfortunately, upon reaching the stream, it did not look like great Cutthroat water, with little holding water, warm water and substantial mats of algae. However, in my excursions for desert trout, I have certainly found fish in worse habitat, so I decided to see if I couldn't at least find some deeper pools that might hold a fish or two.

Stream #3

With that I pushed on upstream, but just like the last two creeks even when I did find some decent holding water I didn't see the slightest sign of fish and figured that I needed to push on further upstream, where I might find some cooler water.

On the road again

Unfortunately, this was easier said than done and after driving several miles further up the road, I once again ran into a gate (with plenty of no trespassing signs) that I couldn't see on the satellite imagery, which blocked the path between me and the public lands further upstream. Having driven all the way out here, I wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel and on my drive up to the dead end I had seen a pull off above a canyon stretch of the stream that just might hold some cooler water and the Cutthroat I was looking for. It was a good scramble down into the canyon, but once again luck was not on my side and the creek in the stretch somehow was even more choked with algae. I still quickly covered a bit of water to see what I could find, but things did not improve, the few deeper holes I found again were devoid of fish with the added and the combo of the heat and the sound of thunder in the distance I convinced that it was time to cut my loses.

Stream #3 - second spot, somehow even worse than the first spot

At this point, the afternoon was already progressing and three streams in I was running out of viable backup options. There were one or two other streams in the area, but the thunderstorm was really starting to set in and given the last two streams did not pan out, it seemed like I needed to change strategy if I wanted to salvage the day. 

At least it was beautiful country

With that I got back on the road once again, and this time decided to try a higher elevation stream on the edge of the continental divide. The last three streams that I had tried all had detailed information on how many trout per mile, presence of nonnatives and hybridization. Information that was proved wrong (at least during the summer months) with the absence of any trout. I would be going in relatively blind on this next stream, as it had almost none of that information. In fact all I had to go off of was a map showing highlighted streams for green and blue lineage populations (no stream names) that best I could tell indicated indicated I should find the trout I was looking for in this next location. It is also worth noting that this same map also indicated that the last three streams should have held these trout as well. After just under three more hours on the road, I pulled off the highway headed for my next stream, but once again I was greeted by a sight that had become all too common over the course of the day - another gate! 

This gate was not going to stop me

Luckily this time, I was much closer to the creek and this gate (on public land at least) simply meant that I was going to get a bit more leg work in than what I had expected. At the first sight of water, I made a beeline for the creek and immediately started working the water. While the water was certainly cold enough,quality holding spots seemed to be few and far between and I didn't see any signs of trout until a came to the best looking pool I had seen all day.

Finally some good looking water

Upon reaching this pool I first tried the outfall sure enough I rose and briefly hooked into a trout, but it popped off after just a few seconds. While I couldn't tell whether or not it was a Cutthroat, it was certainly more life than I had seen all day. I tried a few more casts to make sure that the fish wasn't going to come back, then moved on to the main course and placed a cast in the tailout of the pool. While nobody came out to inspect my fly on the cast in the tailout, I extend my next cast to the mid section of the pool and after my fly drifted just a few feet, I watched a fish slowly rise to intercept it. I waited for the fish to turn, set the hook and finally had a solid hook up on a trout. The fight got a bit dicey as the fish neared the tangled mess of wood at the back of the pool, but I managed to keep the trout from hanging up and breathed a sigh of relief as I netted a gorgeous Colorado River Cutthroat!

Mission accomplished! This fish made all the miles on the road well worth it!

This Cutthroat as an absolute flawless gem, with a vibrant orange belly that popped on the pale yellow background but after a few fleeting moments of quite reverence, it was time to turn it loose and watch it slide back into the depths of the pool. As that fish hadn't disturbed the head of the pool, that was where I put my next cast and sure enough another fish rose to take my fly and a few moments later I landed another slightly smaller Colorado River Cutthroat.

My second Colorado River Cutthroat of the day

After that first pool, it was a long walk to the next piece of holding water and only the best water seemed to hold any fish but I started picking up a few Cutthroat here and there as I worked my way upstream. Before long the valley opened up into wide meadows and it was in one of these meadows as I was working my way upstream, that some movement caught my attention and I was surprised to see a porcupine munching on some leaves just above the water line. This little guy didn't seem to be the slightest bit concerned about my presence and after a few moments of observation I left it alone and pushed on upstream.

A streamside Porcupine

Before long I came to another decent pool and after I got a good cast in I watched as a nice Cutthroat dart from hiding and intercepted my dropper. I always find that watching the take, just makes it that much more memorable, and after a few moments I was able to net an exceptionally nice Cutthroat for the stream. 

My fish of the day - a beautiful golden-bronze 12" male Cutthroat

After I released this fish, the restless nights, all of the driving and hiking was starting to catch up with me and I decided at the next meadow I would call it quits. On the way I found one more Cutthroat in another pool and the creek shortly after the creek lost the flow of a tributary and got significantly smaller supporting my decision to call it on this long day.

 

The creek in the meadow stretch

While it had been a rough day, in the end I got to see some beautiful country and found the fish that I was looking for making it hard to complain. After working my way a good mile upstream of where I had started, it was a relief to have an easy trek out on the abandoned road and with nobody else around it was nice to slowly work my way back to the car I admired the beauty of the high Rockies.

The Colorado high country on the hike out

At this point I had now caught 4 out of the five fish that I was after on the trip and decided that I could really use a good nights sleep so I opted to head for Dillon Colorado and grab a hotel for the night. After several days on the road, it felt amazing to grab a hot meal, clean up and then enjoy a post thunderstorm soak in a hot tub with a view of the Rocky Mountains at the sunset.

A great way to end the evening!

With one last day left, my targets were set on the Greenback Cutthroat, the final subspecies of Cutthroat that I needed to catch the next day. As I was flying out the next afternoon, I just had to cross my fingers that the next day was going to go much smoother than this one had.