5 Years in review

For the last five years, this blog has been largely inactive due to a variety of reasons. During this period my wife and I started a family, I completed graduate school, started a new job and moved twice. Needless to say this has not left a lot of free time to pursue native trout. However, that does not mean that I have not made any outings over the last few years. As I made a one trip to the Rocky Mountains and two to Alaska, as well as a number of trips around Washington State. Given the long gap in activity, I may do some back log posts to fill in the blanks for the last few years, but a few highlights are shown below.

I Wrapped up my thesis looking at Steelhead and Rainbow Trout interactions on the Olympic Peninsula, with a particular focus on food-web dynamics in above and below barrier populations.

A Rainbow Trout diet sample from my Master's thesis work - it ate ~800 salmon eggs.

In 2015 I did a trip through the Northern Rockies to Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and was able to get a little fishing in along the way.

A Yellowstone Cutthroat from a 2015 trip Yellowstone National Park

A beaver on a lake in Teton National Park

A Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat from the lake

In 2015 I also managed to make a trip to the Kenai Peninsula and got some fishing for Rainbow Trout and Dolly Varden.

 A Large Dolly Varden from the Kenai River.

Fishing the Kenai Peninsula

A sea-run Dolly Varden from the Kenai Peninsula

In 2018 I did another trip to Alaska with my sister, my niece and nephew and my daughter and tried a couple lakes from Taranets Char (Salvelinus alpinus taranetzi) unsuccessfully due to not being able to get through stocked Rainbow Trout to the Char. However, I did have luck for native Rainbows and Dollies on the Kenai once again.

 A Taranets Char Lake

Fishing with my daughter

I have started to update the website once again with more up to date information on native trout and salmon species and new pictures that I have available. Additionally, I also just completed a trip through Oregon, Nevada and California for White River Redband Trout, John Day River Westslope Cutthroat, Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat, Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout and McCloud River Redbands and will be adding details about the trip in the near future.

Rocky Mountain Getaway

Field season at work has come to a close, so I finally have some time to catch up on a few posts from my summer adventures. The first of which was a trip to Montana and Wyoming during late July with my wife Alexis. This trip originally was supposed to be a work trip to the Trout Congress conference in Bozeman, MT. However, after booking everything for the trip the conference was canceled, so it became a bit of a vacation (with some fishing). As we were no longer completely tied to Bozeman, we decided to head up to Glacier National Park to start things off. This trip was not as focused on fishing as it was hiking, camping and enjoying the scenery, but I certainly did get some fishing in along the way.

The scenery from Going to the Sun Road

This wasn't my first time to Glacier National Park, however this time we had much more time to explore and do a few more extensive hikes. Initially we were going to check out the trails around Logan Pass at the top of Going to the Sun Road. However, wildfires on the eastside of the park near the pass had caused the road to be closed. We did a few other small walks along the westside of the parks before heading over the eastside the long way to camp at Two Medicine Lakes. 

I had never been to this part of the park before and it was absolutely amazing, with open meadows and dramatic views of the mountains. Our major hike while in this part of the park was up to an alpine lake that was supposed to have a good population of Cutthroat.

Horses grazing the prairies just outside the park

The trail followed along a beautiful creek on its way up to the lake and mountain goats could be seen on the peaks as we neared the lake.

The creek on the way to the lake

We arrived at the lake right around lunch time and decided to have lunch before I would try to get a few casts in. In theory this would also allow me some time to observe the lake for risers and likely spots to intercept a Cutthroat. Unfortunately, things did not play out that way, as by the time that we had finished lunch, a thunderstorm had rolled in and we had to hunker down and wait for it to pass. 

The lake before the thunderstorm rolled in

The weather did not seem to want to allow for fishing even after the wait, so we made the call to head back to the trailhead and get back to camp. The next day we headed toward Bozeman. 

We were in Bozeman for a few days, which we filled with trips to the nearby hot springs, Lewis and Clark Caverns and just checking out the town. While in the area we also decided to do a hike in the Gallatin Range to a lake with Golden Trout, hoping that this time the weather would be a bit more conducive. Unfortunately, a cold front had moved in overnight and by the time we were nearing the lake, we were hiking through fresh snow. I did give things for Golden Trout a good shot, and got a few strikes and a couple hook ups stripping nymphs and streamers, but didn't manage to land any and the cold snowy conditions made to hard to stick things out for too long.

Fishing for Golden Trout amid some July snow

The next day Alexis and I headed in to Yellowstone to see some sights and do a bit more fishing in the afternoon. I found a nice stretch on a stream that I had fished in the park before and pretty quickly saw some fish rising to terrestrials along the bank. A few casts later and I was hooked into a nice Yellowstone Cutthroat which put up a good fight before coming to the net.

The river

Hooked into a nice Cutthroat in Yellowstone

A nice Yellowstone Cutthroat

After fishing in the park for a bit, we decided to try to get a couple of hours in on the Yellowstone River in Paradise Valley, to catch the evening hatch before heading back to Bozeman. This stretch of the Yellowstone is absolutely beautiful and the river is a classic western freestone as it meanders through the valley. It took us some time, but we found a great steam where a couple of side channels came together and we finally found some rising fish.

The Yellowstone River

Alexis on the river

A Yellowstone Brown Trout

We started getting into some smaller Brown Trout, but for whatever reason were having an exceptionally difficult time hooking into some of the risers. However, when I did finally get a bit luckier on my timing the reason become more apparent as we had found ourselves a school of surface feeding Mountain Whitefish.

A Whitefish in the net

Dry fly caught Mountain Whitefish

A couple of fawns along the bank of the river.

After a few hours on the river, we headed back to Bozeman as the next day we would be heading down to Jackson, WY for the final leg of the trip and an overnight backpacking trip into a lake in the Tetons.

This part of the trip was the highlight for both of us, the trail was relatively flat, there were amazing views along the way and when we got to the lake, we realized we would have the spot completely to ourselves. 

The Tetons

The lake

The lake had a healthy population of smallish Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat and as evening approached a Callibaetis hatch started and fish began to rise across the lake.

A Callibaetis mayfly

A beautiful Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat

Another Cutthroat post-release

Fishing on the lake was great, but as the evening wore on we decided to stop early and just enjoy beauty of the location. At this point wildlife was coming out of the wood work, with several beavers cursing the lake, deer browsing the meadows and marmots in the rockpiles chirping away. 

A beaver on the lake

The lake at sunset

That evening was the perfect way to wind down the trip, with that lake standing out as one of my favorite locations that I have been to on my travels across the west.

Annual trip to Yellowstone

Each year I try to make it over to Yellowstone at least once, so this year as the fall was already underway I finally made the trip over to the park, even if that meant that I only had one day there. With snow dusting the upper elevations and the leaves turning colors everything definitely had an end of season feel. I started out at Mammoth Hot Springs where I got my fishing license, lunch and wandered through the hot spring terraces.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Minerva Terrace at Mammoth

After my brief stop at Mammoth I headed east towards the Lamar Valley and into Yellowstone Cutthroat country. Unlike in the summer when it is hard to find a place to fish due to the amount of anglers, this time it was more of a problem of too many bison hanging out along the river.

Typical scene along the river

The Lamar Valley

Before long I did find a nice stretch of the river that was clear of wildlife, rigged up and headed to the water. With air temperatures in the lower 50's and a strong breeze blowing the air had a wintery feel to it and I decided to start out nymphing.

The river

It would be hard to say that fishing was fast paced, there was no sign of any rising fish even with a decent hatch of blue winged olives and midges coming off and my nymphing rig of a San Juan worm and BWO nymph wasn't getting much attention either. However, persistence pays of and when my indicator went down I am not sure whether me or the fish was more surprised about the hook up. With the cooler water temperatures, the battle seemed a bit sluggish, but the fish did have some size to it and still put a good bend in my 4wt. Before long though, I slid the beautiful 15" Yellowstone Cutthroat into the net.

A beautiful 15" Yellowstone Cutthroat

Another shot of the same fish

I finished fishing through the run after getting the one Cutthroat and had one more brief hook up, but with the cold temperatures I decided to call it a successful outing and do a bit more sightseeing before leaving the park.

The sightseeing was actually rather impressive as among the wildlife spotted there as a grizzly bear, some bighorn sheep, antelope and a couple of wolves.

A Yellowstone Grizzly Bear making its way across a small stream.

A Yellowstone Quicky

This past week I was invited to tag along on a quick trip over to the Yellowstone area with my sister and brother-in-law and as my schedule allowed the time for this, a few days later I was on the road. I got off work at 5:00 PM on Monday and the next day at about the same time after some red eye driving, we were in Jackson Wyoming and on the doorstep of some of the greatest trout streams in North America. Like my last trip to the Rockies, this officially wasn't a fishing trip, but once again it is hard to go to the Yellowstone area and not at least wet a line. I originally planned to sneak off and fish some of the waters around Jackson on the first day, but our arrival was greeted by a massive thunderstorm so I decided to hold off for the next day. On Wednesday the second day of the trip, we had a full day to spend in the park, but most of it was to be spent seeing the sights and doing touristy stuff. Of course anyone doing this has to stop at Old Faithful. Unlike my past few trips to the park our timing was off this time so with an hour or so to blow we decide to grab some lunch first. After an enjoyable lunch, the geyser was ready to blow and while this was probably my tenth time seeing Old Faithful go off, it still remains an amazing thing to behold.

 

Old Faithful

From Old Faithful we worked our way north into Yellowstone Cutthroat country where I was hoping to get a chance to pursue some of these beautiful native trout.

 

The wide open expanses of northern Yellowstone

However, the Cutthroat weren't the only reason that we were working our way to this part of the park either. Wildlife viewing was a little slim in the rest of the park this time and in my experience the Lamar Valley has more animals than any other part of the park. So for my brother-in-law who hadn't been to the park since he was a kid this was the perfect place to go. There were some skeptics in the car about this though and so I wagered a pizza for dinner that we would see at least two herds of bison in the valley. Of course this was a bet that took me less then five minutes to win... When we finally got to the stream that I was hoping to fish, I was amazed to see that my favorite spot was free and better yet there were no cars pulled off to fish for at least a mile above or below it! I rigged up my 4wt with hopper dropper set up and headed down to the water. Unfortunately, for me my favorite spot had also changed around a bit since last time I had been there, so it took me a while to find some fishy water.

The stream

While searching for the perfect pool, I managed to rise a couple of fish to the hopper and had some take downs on the dropper, but didn't feel that it was quite getting their attention enough. This meant a change was in order so I re-rigged with an ever dependable Royal PMX, my favorite dry and a size 18 Lightning Bug as a dropper. Shortly after the re-rig, I finally located that perfect spot on a side channel with a great deep cut bank on one side and figured that it was as good of a spot as any for a Cutthroat to hang out. Sure enough two casts in my dry went down as a good sized Cutthroat had grabbed my dropper. The fish had some size to it, but Yellowstone Cutthroat aren't known for being the world's best fighting trout and after a bit of thrashing and running I was able to bring the beautiful 16" native Cutthroat to hand.

A native Yellowstone Cutthroat

After a quick photo the fish darted back into its home pool and I head back up the top of the pool again. Two casts later another fish gulped my dry fly and within a a couple minutes I had another beautiful Yellowstone Cutthroat to hand.

Another beautiful Yellowstone Cutthroat

With that fish, the light started falling and it was time to make our way out of the park, fighting our way through the bison jams along the way. The next day my fishing time was even more limited, so I headed to an old standby spot down in the Tetons to try for some Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat. Along the way the views were outstanding and we even found a few more bison as well.

The Tetons

The creek with Grand Teton in the background

The stream was as low as I have ever seen it, but the fishing was fast paced as ever. The only problem was the size of the fish was much smaller than what I am typically used to at this spot. I have never been one to get to worried about catching small fish though and these Cutthroat were all beautiful and better yet native.

A beautiful albeit small Fine Spotted Cutthroat

That being said, bigger fish definitely are nice, so I continued to cover the water through a pocket water stretch hoping for something a little larger. I did get a couple of lookers and one larger fish to flash at my nymph, but before long my time was up. Even so I got some beautiful trout in some of the most beautiful country in North America so it was great outing by my standards.

A small Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat in its habitat

That stream was my last chance to fish on the trip, but that was fine by me as it isn't everyday I get to hangout in the Rockies. I am now back home again with my sights set on Coho and Coastal Cutthroat in the saltwater.

Finishing up the Cutt Slam

About a month ago my sister invited me to join her on a trip to eastern Idaho to visit her husband's family. This area is one of my favorite parts of the to world, so of course I jumped at the opportunity. The trip also prompted me to decided to finish up the Wyoming Cutt Slam, in which anglers have to catch four of Wyoming's native Cutthroat Trout in their native streams. Back in 2006, I had fished in Wyoming and caught three types of it's native Cutthroat, so I just needed one more to finish it up. That last fish was the Green River strain of the Colorado River Cutthroat, which is native to central Wyoming, only a few hours from where we were staying. 

Day 1: Saturday, September 27th 2008: The entire first day of the trip was spent making the 13 hour drive to Driggs, Idaho. Not much exciting happened except for some issues with our hotel reservation, which ended up being at a place that Expedia was offering reservations for but wasn't actually open during the off-season. Once we got things cleared up with Expedia, we ended up at a Best Western which worked out alright. 

Day 2: Sunday, September September 28th 2008: My sister and I took the day to check out the area (including a couple hours for fishing), which is located just on the slightly less famous western side of the Teton Mountains. We grabbed some lunch at in Victor, ID, which happened to have some of the best Potato soup that I have ever had. After this, we ran down to the Teton River where I tried my luck fishing for a little bit.

The Teton River

Essentially the Teton River in the Driggs area is a huge spring creek with a strong population of Yellowstone Cutthroat, a few Brook Trout and some Mountain Whitefish. The only problem is that the river gets a lot of attention from other fisherman. Needless to say the fish were extremely picky and I didn't have much luck. The next place that we went to check out was the Grand Targhee Ski Resort, which is just outside of town. Even though it was way to early to think about snowboarding this place looked like it would be a fun slope, and the fall colors in the Tetons were awesome.

Fall colors at Grand Targhee

From here I went to try a little fishing at a local stream. When I first walked up to the creek I spooked a trout, but this was also the only fish that I saw. Even though the fishing tough, the scenery was great, so I still had a great time.

The creek

Day 3: Monday September 29th 2008: Today I had a full to devote to fishing, so I headed up to a small stream in the Tetons to see if I could find any Yellowstone Cutthroat. I arrived at the trail to the creek little after 9:00 AM and started hiking.

 

The wilderness area boundary

I reached the creek about a 1/4 mile up the trail, and rigged up my rod with a size 12 Royal PMX and Copper John dropper. The creek was a classical medium gradient mountain stream, consisting of riffles, runs and a few pools and pieces of pocket water every once and a while. I started systematically covering the water and working my way upstream, but after a half an hour I still hadn't had any grabs. I finally came to a small pool where a few fish were holding, but when I got closer wasn't to happy to notice that they were all Brook Trout. Outside their native range Brook Trout generally outcompete other trout (especially Cutthroat), so they have been a big problem to the continued existence of many populations of native trout. Even so, I was here so I might as well fish for them, and just upstream of the pool I rose one, but lost it. I continued working my way upstream, without any further grabs until I came to a small piece of pocket water where I saw a fish rise. I made my cast and the fish eagerly ate my dry fly. The fish fought in the typical Brook Trout fashion, going deep and doing a bit of thrashing around but little else.

Even though they aren't native to the west, Brook Trout are an extremely beautiful fish

The creek

After catching my first one, I started noticing a few more Brookies here and there, but they are all extremely spooky so I had to be very careful not to scare them when I approached promising looking water. This often meant that I had to hide behind something or make an extremely long cast to get a response from the fish. The sneaky approach tactic worked great though, and I started hooking up and catching Brook Trout left and right, but still no Cutthroat.

A spawning pair of Brook Trout

About a mile upstream from where I started, the creek began to change in character, having a much steeper gradient and consisting of more pools and pocket water. It was just at the beginning of this high gradient section that I finally hooked a fish that didn't act like the typical Brook Trout. Instead it shot strait out of they water, then followed up with several more jumps and when I brought it to the net it ended up being a beautiful little native Yellow Cutthroat.

My first Yellowstone cutthroat from the stream

After the first one, the amount of Cutthroat drastically increased, although Brook Trout still seemed to outnumber them about 3:1. If I had to chose a favorite type of water to fish for trout it would probably small stream pocket water, so I felt like I was in my element here. Just about every pool that I came held at least one fish, and as I progressed further upstream, the Tetons began to come into view, really adding to the experience. After a while I came to a perfect looking pool with a small water fall at its head that just screamed trout. I hid behind a large boulder and made a short cast upstream, only to watch a "monster" Cutthroat materialize from the depths, and slowly but confidently rise to the surface to inhale my dry fly. The fish turned, and I set the hook and it was fish on. Even though the Cutthroat put up a valiant effort and a good bend in my fly rod, it really didn't have anywhere to go and I brought it to the net after a short fight. Against the basket of my net I figure that the fish was about 14", which was extremely impressive for the surroundings that he was living in.

My big Cutthroat

The pool where the Cutthroat came from

A few pools above where I got the big Cutthroat, I got a slightly smaller but still impressive sized Brook Trout. However, not to far above where I caught this big Brookie, the stream began to level off again and I decided that I had probably fished enough for one day so I made my way to the trail and hiked back out to the car.

The big Brook Trout

Looking upstream toward the Tetons

That evening after fishing, my sister and I joined her husband's cousin on a horseback ride to a small lake in the mountains, which was a lot of fun and a new experience for me. 

Day 4: Tuesday September 30th 2008: I spent the day with my sister going to meet her husband's family. No fishing, but we got some killer Indian Tacos at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation with her relatives for lunch. After visiting the family, we left Idaho behind and headed over to Jackson, WY for the next couple of days. 

Day 5: Wednesday October 1st 2008: This was my day to see if I could finish up the Wyoming Cutt Slam by catching some Green River strain Colorado River Cutthroat. Prior to leaving a native trout buddy Dave B. had pointed me in the right direction for a decent stream, so I got up early to make the long drive over to the Green River drainage. Even though it had been nice every day, the mornings showed signs that fall was in progress, and the temperature was 25 degrees when I left Jackson in the morning. Once in the Green River valley, it became evident that the Pronghorn Antelope were making their annual migration to their overwintering grounds, as every open field had 10-20 antelope in it. About 8:00 AM I turned off on the road to the creek and covered the 30 miles of dirt road to finally reach my destination, a broad valley tucked back in the Wyoming Range.

The creek valley

One couldn't ask for a more perfect little trout stream, and besides a few hunters driving up and down the valley, I had the place to myself. This was a stereotypical little meadow stream, that lazily flowed through the valley doing a series of perfect U turns with a few beaver ponds thrown in here and there. I hit the water using my ever dependable Royal PMX and Copper John dropper set up and caught a fish almost right away.

A Green River Cutthroat

However, after this initial fish the fishing unfortunately slowed down a bit and even though I cast to every likely looking spot, I didn't find anymore fish for the next 1/4 mile upstream. It seemed as though the combination of the cold morning air and the fish moving to more suitable over-wintering water may have been working against me. I finally found some fish at a where riffle came into a deep pool as the creek turned a corner. The first fish I got was a Cutthroat, but the second was something unexpected; a small Mountain Whitefish. While Whitefish don't have the best reputation with fly fisherman and the one that I caught was tiny, I was pretty happy about my catch as it was a first for me.

The little Mountain Whitefish

A beaver pond on the creek

After this, the fishing continued to improve and I caught several more Cutthroat as I worked my way upstream. After covering about a mile of the stream, I put a Wooly Bugger and began working my way back downstream. In one of the pools that I came to I caught a small Brook Trout while stripping the Wooly Bugger in, which was an unwelcomed sight in this beautiful little Cutthroat stream. Since this was the only Brook Trout that I saw, it can only be hoped that they will not establish themselves in this creek. On the next cast I got one of my better Cutthroat from the creek, then made way back to the car wishing that I had more time to spend in the area.

A Green River Cutthroat caught on a Wooly Bugger

I got back to Jackson around 3:00pm and my sister and I wandered around town for a while to check out the shops and sights. Next we ran up to Teton National Park and drove around for a bit doing some wildlife viewing and sight seeing. While there, we saw our first moose, which was exciting even though our view was pretty obstructed by some willows that it was laying behind. After going up to the Tetons, went back to Jackson where we got some Sushi for dinner at a little restaurant called Nekai. The Rocky Mountains and good sushi do not seem like something that would go together, but this place was excellent and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

A few Elk in Teton National Park

Day 6: Thursday October 2nd 2008: Today we would begin working our way back home. My sister had never been to Yellowstone, so we decided to drive though park on the way back. While driving through the Tetons, we saw four more moose, which was really cool. It is kind of crazy though, as I have been to the Yellowstone area seven other times and this was the first trip that I had seen any moose on and I end up seeing five of them...

A Moose from across the Snake River

October is a great time to visit Yellowstone, as the crowds have died down, the animals are out and the trees are in their fall colors. The first stop was at Old Faithful, and our timing couldn't have been better as the geyser went off right as we got to the viewing area.

Old Faithful

From here we went up to a hot spring area along the Firehole River and did a bit of hiking, before heading up to Mammoth and out the north entrance of the park. After leaving the park, the rest of the day was spent crossing Montana, and we ended up making it to Coeur d' Alene Idaho where we stayed for the night. 

The Firehole River in the hot springs area

A Bison in Yellowstone

Day 7: Friday, October 3rd 2008: We spent a little bit of time in Coeur d' Alene, then headed back home to Washington. Overall it was an awesome trip, and felt great to just get away for a while. Beyond that, the fishing was great and I managed to catch three native salmonids including one new one, plus I finished of the Wyoming Cutt Slam.