Redband Trout of the Northern Great Basin

Redband Trout are a primitive form of Rainbow Trout and the Northern Great Basin of Oregon and California is home to a great diversity of these fish. During a trip that I had made during 2006, I had caught one of unique varieties of Redband trout that are found in this area and my goal for this trip was to catch the rest of them. Beyond that, I had decided that over the summer I would try to do the California Heritage Trout Challenge, where you have to catch six different types of trout in their native range within California. With three of the fish that I was targeting located in California, I figured that this would give me a great jump on it as long as everything went as planned. 

Day 1: Sunday June 24th 2007: My dad and I left home in Washington early in the morning with rainy weather that would follow us all of the way into central Oregon. Normally when we head over the the Bend, Oregon area we take US 26 over the Cascades, but with bad traffic getting out of the Portland area we decided to take US 20 instead. This was a good move as there was nobody on the road and the drive up the Santiam River valley made for a nice change.

Nasty weather on the way through western Oregon 

Our first stop for the trip was Hosmer Lake, a high mountain lake located about an hour southwest of Bend, Oregon that is stocked with Atlantic Salmon. The lake was beautiful, but the weather was cold and windy and the fish did not appear to be too interested in feeding. I did a circle around the part of the lake near the boat launch in my float tube, using nymphs, dries and streamers. I even tried some of my standby attractor patterns for resident Coho Salmon in the Puget Sound, but only had a couple of hits. With the fishing being slow and the weather going down hill fast, my dad and I decided that it would be best just to head over to the next spot instead of hanging around for what promised to be a chilly night at Hosmer.

Hosmer Lake with Mount Bachelor in the background

From Hosmer Lake, we headed southeast into the Fort Rock Basin to search for its native trout. We arrived at the banks of the creek that was supposed to have the best population of Redbands right as the sun went down and set up camp for the night, hoping the fish would be hungry in the morning.

Fort Rock at sunset

Day 2: Monday June 25th 2007: When I woke up in the morning the thermometer in my car read 33 °F, so I decided to just scout the creek out until it heated up a bit. I hiked both upstream and downstream about a 1/2 mile and found some decent looking water downstream, but the best spot I had found was the culvert pool were the road crossed the creek. By 8:00AM it had warmed up enough for my liking, so I rigged up my 4wt with a size 12 Royal PMX and size 18 black Copper John dropper. The first spot that I tried was the culvert pool, which seemed to be packed with fish and it only took me a couple of minutes to catch my first Fort Rock Basin Redband.

The Fort Rock Basin Redband

I fished the pool for another 45 minutes or so, and caught a few more trout before the fish seemed to stop feeding. At this point I headed for some of the spots that I noticed earlier in the morning when I scouted the creek, but after spending an hour of bush whacking and fishing I had only gotten one more small fish. The only thing to do was head back to the culvert pool, where I caught a couple more fish and even had two on at the same time for a couple of seconds.

The creek upstream of the road

With the first variety of Redband successfully caught, my dad and I decided to hit the road again for the next spot, which was a small stream draining to Summer Lake in the Chewaucan basin. The research that I had done prior to heading out on the trip showed that this stream had never been stocked with hatchery trout, so it should have the purest remaining population of Chewaucan Redbands. We drove up to Summer Lake rim and the headwaters of the creek, but it was much smaller than I had anticipated at only a foot wide and a few inches deep in most places. I decided that I would spend about an hour exploring the creek, so I headed downstream to search for some type of holding water. There was evidence of beaver activity along the creek, but it all appeared to be at least five or ten years old and all of the ponds had long since was out. After a 1/2 mile of fishing a hiking and still no sign of fish, I pulled the plug on it and headed back to the car.

The fishless creek

Summer Lake from above the rim

While I had failed to catch any Redbands at this creek, I don't like going on these trips without backup plans for unproductive streams. This trip was no exception, so it was on to my second choice Chewaucan Basin stream, which ended up being much more productive than the first one. In fact, I was rewarded with a Chewaucan Basin Redband on my dry fly on the first cast. The fishing at this stream was amazing and every likely spot seemed to hold a fish with some going 12" to 15". The water temperature at this stream was some of the warmest that I have ever seen trout in, a testament to the adaptations of these fish to the extreme climate of the high desert of Oregon.

Me at the Chewaucan basin stream

A Chewaucan Basin Redband

A old abandoned cabin along the Chewaucan basin stream

The next stop was a small stream in the upper Klamath Basin that all of my research had indicated held a good population of Klamath Redbands. It was evident as soon as we arrived at this stream that I was going to be in for some "fun" fishing, as the creek flowed though an absolute tunnel of vegetation. I decided that I would hike upstream to see if I could find any beaver ponds or meadow stretches were the creek might open up a bit, but after hiking a mile upstream I had no such luck. I decided to make the best of the situation and scrambled through the bushes down to the creek. When I the water, there wasn't even enough room to stand up straight let alone make a cast. This was small stream fishing in the extreme and the only way to get my fly to where it needed to be was doing some tap and dap fishing or using a bow and arrow cast. Even with the less than ideal conditions I managed to get a fish to grab my fly, the only problem was that there wasn't enough room to raise the rod tip to set the hook, so I lost it.

The Klamath basin creek; the most difficult stream that I have ever fished...

Frustrated with the cramped conditions, I decided to continue my search for some better water. About another half mile upstream I found a spot with a decent pool, where I would have enough room to set the hook if need be. I rose a fish as soon as my Royal PMX hit the water, but as before didn't get a good hook set. However, after a couple more tries I finally got a solid hook up. As it turned out, it wasn't a Redband like I was expecting, but instead was a stream resident Bull Trout! My research had indicated that Bull Trout were also present in this stream, but with all of my failed attempts to catch this elusive fish in Washington I never expected that I would actually catch any.

My first Bull Trout

On the next cast, if that is the right word, I finally caught a Klamath Basin Redband on my dropper. After this, the fish seemed to be aware of my presence so I moved little ways upstream to another small pool where I got another Bull Trout and Redband. Above that pool, the vegetation formed an impassible barrier, so I made my way back to the trail. Since I had caught the fish that I came for and the sun was beginning to set, I decided to forgo anymore fishing and hiked back down to camp at the trailhead. This was without a doubt the hardest stream that I have ever fished, but with the Bull Trout and Redbands that I caught it was well worth the effort.

A Klamath Headwaters Redband Trout

Day 3: Tuesday June 26th 2007: The fish to target for the day was the McCloud River Redband, which are native to the upper McCloud River drainage in the Mount Shasta area of California. We broke camp in the Klamath Basin early and made our way to the spring fed streams on the southeastern slopes of Mount Shasta that are a refuge for the McCloud River Redband.

Me at the base of Mount Shasta on the way to the McCloud River Redband waters

We arrived at the first stream at around 11:00 AM and on my third or fourth cast, I caught my first Redband. The fishing didn't slow down either and just seemed to improve as I worked my way upstream. It was evident that the population of fish here was healthy and they didn't seem to think twice before grabbing my fly. After covering about a quarter mile of the stream and catching plenty of Redbands, I headed back to the car and handed my fly rod off to my dad who also caught several fish. Once we had caught our fair share of fish, we hit the road again to try to find some more Redbands in another nearby stream.

A McCloud River Redband

A productive run on the McCloud River Redband stream

I had originally planned on fishing two more streams that these Redbands are native to in order to get a better sampling of the diversity found among the different isolated populations. The only problem with this idea was that poor signage, a lack of GPS and maze of forest service and logging roads made the other streams impossible to locate. We ended up wasting the next couple of hours on a wild goose chase looking for a couple of streams that we never found. At this point we were pretty worn out and my dad suggested that we should head over to Reno for the night. This idea sounded great as it would possibly give me a shot at some Lahontan Cutthroat and put me another step closer to completing the Heritage Trout Challenge. However, just getting to Reno in the first place ended up being no small task though, and we ended up wasting two hours waiting for pilot cars at road work projects. As we got closer to Reno we noticed an odd cloud over the area which ended up being smoke from a forest fire in the south Lake Tahoe area and ruled out my plans of going after any Lahontan Cutthroat on this trip. Skipping the fishing ended up making the stay in Reno a bit more relaxing at least, as it gave us a chance to take in the town and get a good nights sleep.

Reno Nevada

Day 4: Wednesday June 27th 2007: We got off to a slow start in order to get a little enjoyment out of the swimming pool at our hotel in Reno. Once on the road we ran into three more road work projects on US 395 on our way to Goose Lake and lost about another hour due to them. When we finally got to Goose Lake, we headed up a forest service road leading to the stream that I wanted to fish. Once again finding the stream proved difficult, but after getting turned around a couple of times we finally made our way to the creek. The creek was beautiful and flowed from meandering meadows into high gradient pocket water sections. Both my dad and I got rigged up to fish here and at the advice of a California fisheries biologist we started out in the pocket water section, which was supposed to hold more fish than the meadow water. My dad hooked a fish almost right away on his dry, but lost it after a few seconds. The next fish that he hooked stayed on the line and he got the first Goose Lake Redband of the trip. It soon became evident that the fish in this stream were experts at throwing flies and if you wanted to land them at all you had to do it quickly. I fished my way downstream further into the pocket water section, and managed to catch five Redbands including one that was decent size for the creek on my nymph. While the pocket water was much more productive, meadow section was a bit more scenic and I couldn't resist trying it out for a bit. While this section was fun fish, true to what the biologist had indicated it was much less productive, as the fish were few and far between and spooked easily.

Me working the pocket water section for some Goose Lake Redbands

A Goose Lake Redband

After checking another variety of trout off my list, we made up a quick dinner then hit the road again headed for the northern side of the Warner Mountains, so I could try to catch some Warner Lakes Redbands. The road to this spot was one of the hairiest that I have ever seen, as it switch backed up the mountainside. Along the way we passed several old gold rush era mines before reaching the tiny stream which meandered through a meadow at about 7,000 feet above sea level. Upon exiting the car I discovered that this spot was completely infested with mosquitoes prompting me to make quick work of catching the Warner Lakes Redband. Luckily the fish agreed with this idea and while not large, there were a good number of them at the road crossing pool. I used the same ever dependable Royal PMX and Copper John setup and caught a handful of fish out of the pool before heading upstream a little further. I lasted about a half hour before blood lose from mosquito bites and the failing daylight forced me to call it a day. We had originally planned on camping here, but between the mosquitoes and rapidly dropping temperatures we changed our mind, and decided to drive through the night to reach the next spot.

The Warner Mountains above the creek at just before sunset

A small Warner Lakes Redband

The drive to the next spot located in the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge was a little interesting as the desert came alive at night and all manner of creatures seemed intent at testing our ability to dodge them. We arrived at the creek at around midnight, set up camp quickly and hit the hay.

The Catlow Valley stream

Day 5: Thursday June 28th 2007: We got up at about 7:00 AM and I immediately went out to check out the creek out with my fly rod. This stream appeared to be about the width of the one above Summer Lake where I couldn't find any trout, but had much better depth as it flowed through a meadow interspersed with a few groves of Aspens here and there. I decide to head downstream to where a small tributary added its flow to the creek and found a decent pool with some fish in it. As soon as the Royal PMX hit the water a fish attacked it, but unfortunately it managed to shake the hook. On the next cast though another fish grabbed my fly and I got a solid hook up and I caught my first Catlow Valley Redband, which was followed by a number of others.

My first Catlow Valley Redband

A deer on the hillside above the creek

The fishing in this creek was ridiculous, and every pool would hold several fish that grabbed my fly as soon as it hit the water. On my way back upstream, I stopped at a small pool where I caught my biggest trout on the creek, a nice deeply colored about 10" buck. As we were heading out of the refuge we saw a good number of Pronghorn Antelope amidst some beautiful scenery. With the Catlow Valley Redband being caught and photographed, we called it a wrap and started the long drive home.

Roadside pronghorn antelope

Overall the trip was a great success; I managed to catch seven new varieties of native trout and one new char. One top of that I got three fish for the California Hertiage Trout Challenge. Fishing licenses and gas were expensive as usual and the roads and roadwork in Northern California less than ideal, but the fishing more than made up for it.

Cutthroat of the Rocky Mountains

My goal for this trip was to catch all of the subspecies of Cutthroat Trout native to the Rocky Mountains excluding the Westslope Cutthroat, which I had caught a number of in the Cascade Mountains two weeks prior to leaving. While Cutthroat are native to a vast area of the western United States, their populations have been greatly reduced due to a variety of issues. As such, pure and healthy populations can be quite difficult to come by today. I started planning this trip during September of 2005, and relied on a variety of different resources to come up with a list of streams to fish that would hold healthy populations of Cutthroat without any hybrid influences. 

Day 1: Monday July 31st 2006: My dad and I made the 12+ hour drive to Yellowstone, with nothing overly exciting occurring along the way. When we got to the park, we found out the the campground where we were planning on staying was already full, so we diverted to Indian Creek campground, which luckily had a few spots left. 

Day 2: Tuesday August 1st 2006: We woke up bright and early to a chilly Yellowstone morning. After a quick breakfast, we drove over to the Lamar Valley and Soda Butte Creek to try our luck fishing for some Yellowstone Cutthroat. We arrived at the creek to find it extremely crowded and had to hunt to find a stretch that we would have to ourselves, or so we thought. We ended up being constantly high holed or low holed, which really limited the amount of water we could cover. Even so while we were there, we rose more than our fair share for Cutthroat, including one that my dad hooked and was close to 20". Even with the few larger fish around, I still only managed to catch a couple of small Cutthroat prompting us to consider a less crowded option.

A pronghorn antelope on the way out to the Lamar Valley

With Soda Butte Creek being one of the more popular streams in the park, I decided to try a relatively unknown small stream that was supposed to hold a good population of Yellowstone Cutthroat. Arriving at the stream, I found it to be completely vacant of anglers and full of small but hungry trout, with some up to 12". I rigged up my rod with a Royal PMX and Lightning Bug dropper and started catching fish in every likely looking spot. Eventually, I came to a nice plunge pool where I watched my dry fly get pulled under as a Cutthroat grabbed my nymph. After a quick fight I landed a beautiful 12" Yellowstone Cutthroat, my best fish for the creek. Soon after landing the Cutthroat, the weather began to deteriorate and I made my way back down the creek as the rain set in.

 

The Creek

A stream resident Yellowstone Cutthroat caught on a Lightning Bug nymph in a deep hole

Once back at the car, we made our way to one of my favorite streams in the northwestern corner of the  park. The weather was better in this part of the park, but it looked like it wouldn't last long. Although this stream doesn't have much in the way of native trout, it always spoils me as every likely spot seems to hold a fish, and I caught numerous Brown Trout, Rainbows and Cuttbows before I was finally chased out by a thunderstorm. After again being bested by bad weather, we headed back to the campground to get some dinner and settle in for the evening. After a good dinner I was feeling recharged, decided to head out fishing again to see if I could find any Brook Trout in the upper Gardner River. It didn't take long before I found a nice section of the river that was full of rising Brook Trout that eagerly took my dry fly. Well above this I found some decent pools that were packed with Brook Trout, which couldn't resist the Zug Bug that is my go to fly in this type of water.

A pool on the upper Gardner River

A Brook Trout caught on a Zug Bug

After catching my fill of Brook Trout, I headed back to camp as the sun started to drift toward the horizon. The day had been a great success, not only had I caught the Yellowstone Cutthroat that I came to the park for, but I had also caught a number of Brook, Brown and Rainbow Trout making it the first time that I had caught all four species in a single day. 

Day 3: Wednesday August 2nd 2006: I am used to cold nights in Yellowstone, but this one had been especially chilly and we woke in the morning to find everything coated with a thick layer of frost. The plan for the day was to leave the Yellowstone National Park behind and head south to the Tetons to try to find some Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat.

Me with Jackson Lake and the Tetons in the background

The spot that I had chosen to fish had treated my dad and I very well on a trip in 2005, so I was looking forward to going back again. However after fishing all of the spots where we had done well on our previous trip all I had to show for the effort was one small Brook Trout and a few missed strikes.

A lake at the foot of the Tetons

With a less than successful first outing for Fine Spotted Cutthroat, we headed down the valley into Jackson to get lunch and possibly a hotel room so that I could try to get some Cutthroat later in the evening or the next morning. Unfortunately, we did not anticipate just how busy Jackson would be since our previous trips had not been during the peak travel season. With the town completely overrun with tourists and all of the hotel nearby were booked, as such staying here was out of the question. Even though it was busy, we did manage to get lunch at Bubba's BBQ than continued down the road toward the native range of the Bear River Cutthroat, my next target. We ended up deciding to stay in Afton Wyoming, which was the closest town to the Bear River Cutthroat stream and was also close to several decent Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat streams. 

That evening I headed out to try my luck Fine Spotted Cutthroat again, this time targeting small tributary of the Salt River. The creek was only about fifteen feet across in its widest spots, but was extremely fast moving and as a result had little holding water. Due to its small size, I decided to just wet wade, which was a big mistake as the water was frigid and the evening was cooling down fast. I covered close to a 1/4 mile of stream before I finally found a bit of decent holding water and spotted a rising trout. My first couple casts landed a little short, but finally I got a good cast into his feeding lane and hooked up. Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat are notorious for being hard fighting fish, and with the fast water this hefty trout fit that mold perfectly, but still came to the net before long. For a stream this size, this was a great fish running nearly 15".

A Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat

Not to far upstream from this first cutthroat, I found a nice little pool and after placing a cast tight to a rock ledge I hooked up with another even larger cutthroat. This fish was 18" or better, but as I went to bring it to the net my small nymph popped out and the giant drifted back into the shadows. The rest of fish seemed to share this talent for tossing flies, and as the sun began to set headed back to the hotel with high hopes of getting into some Bear River strain of the Bonneville Cutthroat in the morning. 

Day 4: Thursday August 3rd 2006: We continued on our route and drove over a mountain pass from the Snake River drainage into the Bonneville basin. The first stop for the day was a small stream that my research had indicated held a fair amount of Bear River strain Bonneville Cutthroat. Arriving at the stream I located a good looking stretch that had a large concentration of beaver ponds. The water in the creek was relatively murky, so I rigged up with a flashy Thin Mint Wooly Bugger with a Zug Bug as a trailer about 16" behind it. Once I was rigged up, I headed over to the largest of the beaver ponds and started fishing from the top of the dam. As I was stripping my fly in I could see golden flashes from the Cutthroat and after a few missed hits, I finally hooked up and brought and nice 16" Cutthroat to the net. After my luck in the big pond dried up, I tried some of the other ponds and caught several other smaller Bear River Cutthroat before getting back on the road again.

 

My big Bear River Cutthroat

Another smaller Bear River strain Bonneville Cutthroat

Me at the Bear River Cutthroat stream

We continued down the road with hopes of making it to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado by dark. The countryside quickly transitioned from forested mountains to sage brush desert. This desert portion of Wyoming had some very interesting and unique rock formations and had an incredibly high population of pronghorn antelope and a large concentration of natural gas wells. After several hours of driving through this terrain, the scenery became rather repetitive it didn't revert back to mountains until we were well into Colorado.

The Wyoming desert

Just outside Steamboat Springs Colorado we ran into a large thunderhead, which seemed to follow us all of the way to Rocky Mountain National Park, but finally tapered off and disappeared in time for us to set up our tent at Timber Creek campground in the park. 

Day 5: Friday August 4th 2006: We awoke early in the morning to see Elk walking through the campground. My targets for the day were set on catching some Greenback Cutthroat (note from the future - based on genetics work, we known know the the fish used for "Greenback" Cutthroat recovery in RMNP were actually misidentified Colorado River Cutthroat), so we set out for a hike in stream on the eastside of the park. The drive to the stream was through some of the most beautiful country that I have ever seen, as the road wound its way along the tops of the 12,000 foot peaks and over the continental divide.

The Colorado high country

A herd of elk in Rocky Mountain National Park

We arrived at the trailhead for the Greenback stream and the parking lot was so crowded that we could barely find a spot. We hiked up the trail about a mile before we came to the creek and started fishing. After covering a few yards of good looking stream and only managing to rise one Cutthroat, I figured that most people would also start fishing as soon as they arrived at the creek, so I decided to head further upstream. I hiked up the trail another mile or so and this made all of the difference in the world.

The Greenback Cutthroat stream

When I got down to the creek I could see several Cutthroat holding in a nice deep slot, so I cast my Royal PMX and Copper John dropper out, but couldn't get any reaction from the fish. Given the lack of interest, I figured that they must be keying in on something, and after a little pocking around I noticed an unusually high number of Yellow Jackets on the banks and a few dead ones in the stream. The closest imitation that I had was a yellow bodied Tellico Nymph, so I switched out my dropper and gave it another try. The results were immediate, as a nice sized Greenback grabbed my nymph on the first cast. There are some fish that when you catch them you have a hard time turning them loose again simply because they are so beautiful, and every one of these Cutthroat feel into this category. Drop dead gorgeous. 

A beautiful "Greenback" Cutthroat.
Note: In 2012 it was discovered that this population was actually made up of Colorado River Cutthroat that had been mistaken for Greenbacks.

After the first Cutthroat, fishing stayed consistently good as I worked my way upstream and each likely looking pocket produced a decent fish. After covering about a half mile of water I ran into trail crossing and reluctantly pulled myself away from fishing and headed back down the trail to the car. I still had one more fish to pursue and the next stop was back at the campground for a quick lunch, than it was off to another stream for some Colorado River Cutthroat.

Rough weather coming in over the high country on the way back to the campground

When I arrived at the Colorado River Cutthroat stream, I found it to be much smaller than what I had been led to believe from the research I had done prior to leaving on the trip. However everything that I had read indicated that it held a pure population of Colorado River Cutthroat, so I headed upstream to see if I could find any. Not to far upstream the gradient of the creek increased and there started to be a bit of decent holding water. Before long I spotted a decent trout in a small run and the fish grabbed my dry on the first cast. However, when I got it to the net it ended up being a Brook Trout instead of a Cutthroat. It seems that these fish have a special talent for turning up where they aren't supposed to be...

Small stream fishing in the extreme: the Colorado River Cutthroat stream

Luckily the Brook Trout was not the norm and in the next pool upstream I caught my first Colorado River Cutthroat on the Royal PMX. Just above this point, I ran into a fish barrier, above which the only fish present were beautifully colored Colorado River Cutthroat. As I continued upstream, the gradient steadily increased and the creek flowed down the mountainside from one stairstep pool to another.

A small, but beautiful Colorado River Cutthroat

Above the barrier, most the pools and pockets held fish, and I spent the next couple hours catching fish in most of the likely spots using dries and nymphs. In such small conditions it was fun watching the reaction of the fish to different flies. I one pocket I tossed a stimulator in only to watch it be refused at the last minute by a Cutthroat. For the next cast I switched back to a Royal PMX and watched as the fish rose to it without any hint of hesitation. In one of the larger pools upstream I caught my biggest trout on the creek at right around 10". While beautiful, this fish had an odd little hole in one of its gill plates, no doubt a testament to the harsh conditions that these fish live in. Having successfully caught some Colorado River Cutthroat I went back down to the campground to get some dinner, then my dad and I headed out to the Colorado River for some more fishing and to see if we couldn't find some more Cutthroat that had washed down from the creek. The mosquitoes on the river were terrible, and after only catching a few small Brook Trout we decided to call it quits.

The upper Colorado River

Day 6: Saturday August 5th 2006: We broke camp bright and early  and headed out of Rocky Mountain National Park bound for New Mexico to so I could try my luck for some Rio Grande Cutthroat. The park was beautiful in the crisp morning air, and there was plenty of wildlife around as well.

Looking down the Colorado River valley

A herd of elk in the alpine tundra

Looking down the east slope of the Rocky Mountains

After leaving the park we followed I-25 across the Frontrange prairies to just south of Colorado Springs where we headed back up into the Rockies. After that, we continued through southern Colorado where the terrain consisted of small groupings of mountains interspaced with desert. The desert extended into northern New Mexico and was a bit reminiscent of the scab lands of eastern Washington. Once into New Mexico, we almost immediately turned up into the mountains heading to the stream that I had chosen to fish for Rio Grande Cutthroat. As we gained elevation, the country rapidly changed from desert to high mountain forests with meadows and a picturesque stream flowing through the middle. Despite seeming to be in the middle of nowhere, it quickly became apparent that I was not going to have the place to myself, as there were fishermen in every pull off along the road. We continued upstream until we managed to find a section of the stream that was vacant of other anglers, and I got to work trying to catch some Cutthroat.

An abandoned adobe house in the valley leading up to the stream

The Rio Grande Cutthroat stream with an afternoon thunderstorm in the distance

Catching Cutthroat in this stream proved to be more challenging than expected as these fish were some extremely quick risers that often spit the hook before I had even realized that they had taken the fly. After a while I caught my first cutthroat, which was followed by several others as I got used to their lightning fast strikes.

A Rio Grande Cutthroat

Me working a productive stretch of water

 

I continued fishing until we were driven from the stream by a thunderstorm, at which point we got back on the road and ended up finding a place to camp outside of Durango, Colorado.

 

Day 7: Sunday August 6th 2006: The combination a symphony of insects and thunderstorms made for a rough night of sleep, and when we finally got up it was back on the road for an uneventful day of driving. We drove through Colorado and Utah and along the way decided that we had time to try to go after one more type of fish - the Humboldt Cutthroat. With that our destination was clear and ended the day in the small casino town of Wendover, Nevada. While in Wendover, I finalized my plans for the next day's fishing and we took full advantage of the pool and buffet at the hotel where we stayed the night.

Breaking camp in Colorado for a long day on the road

Looking out toward Wendover, Nevada and the Bonneville salt flats

Day 8: Monday August 7th 2006: We got up in the morning and headed along I-80 through the desert, turning north at Elko to search for some Humboldt Cutthroat. We than followed the North Fork of the Humboldt River up to a forest service road leading to a small tributary that was said to hold healthy population of these Cutthroat. However, not to far up the road we ran into a group of ranchers that were driving to cattle up the road and had to wait for them to pass. While we waited, I rigged up my fly rod with the Royal PMX and Copper John step up that had already proved itself so effective on the rest of the trip.

The Humboldt National Forest

Once the cattle had passed I headed down to the creek and on my second cast hooked a Cutthroat, which unfortunately shook loose before I could get it in. A little further upstream I found a small hole and rose a 14" Cutthroat, but it too shook loose. Above this pool, the stream split into a number of side channels and was impossible to fish due to lack of water and a barrier of riparian vegetation. Blocked from continuing upstream I turned around and headed back the way I came. Just below where I had started out, I found an nice little channel with a Cutthroat sitting in the middle actively feeding on insects floating by. I made cast which landed well above the fish and slightly to his right and watched as he slowly cruised over to intercept my fly. There wasn't going to be any mistakes this time, and I landed my first Humboldt Cutthroat. Not far below where I caught this fish the stream once again flowed into an impenetrable wall of vegetation, so I decided to head back out the way I came to look for another way downstream.

A Humboldt Cutthroat

Once back where I had started, I found a little game trail leading downstream to an open section of the creek. This part of the stream had been absolutely ravaged by cattle, which had caved in the banks causing the creek to cut itself a small canyon. However, I found a nice pool that had been created by a bank cave in at the upstream end of the canyon and started fishing. The water in the pool was extremely off color, so I changed my tactics and switched to a heavy beadhead Zug Bug which I fished like a jig. The method proved to be very effective and within short order I had caught a couple more Cutthroat.

Erosion caused cattle on the Humboldt Cutthroat stream 

After a few Humboldts out of the hole, I decided to head back to the car so that we could me it home by the end of the day. The rest of the day was spent driving and we didn't get home until 10:30 PM after an extremely successful trip. All in all, I caught 10 types of trout on the trip, including five subspecies of Cutthroat that I hadn't caught before, making it an extremely rewarding once in a lifetime opportunity.

Eastern Oregon: Cutthroat and redbands of the Oregon desert

Day 1: Monday June 26th 2006: My dad and I left home bound for eastern Oregon around noon with the hopes that by the end of this trip I would manage to catch some Harney-Malheur Basin Redbands, Columbia Basin Redband and Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat. Other than some extremely high temperatures (109 degrees F in Gresham Oregon), the first day was rather uneventful and we ended up staying the night at my uncle's house in Bend Oregon.

The Three Sisters and Oregon Cascades from my uncle’s house in Bend

Day 2: Tuesday June 27th 2006: This was to be the day for me to do the majority of my fishing; we drove from Bend to the small town of Burns where we purchased our fishing licenses. The next stop was a river in the Harney-Malheur Basin to try to catch some Redbands. We arrived at the river in the mid-morning, set up camp and I got to fishing.

The river

To get away from the campground, I decided to hike upstream a ways. Upon entering the river, the water was a bit high and off colored from snow melt, but luckily that did not stop the fish from feeding. I decided to start with a dry/ dropper river and began to catch fish on a Royal PMX and Lightning Bug set up almost right away. These Redlands were some extremely hard fighting fish, and the first one I hooked jumped four times before finally coming to the net. With the high flows, it seemed that the majority of the fish were keyed in on nymphs, but I caught a few on dries as well. In a few hours of fishing, I managed to catch a fair number of fish, but lost far more including an 18" Redband that I hooked on a streamer in one of the deeper pools and almost had to the net before it tossed the fly.

A Harney-Malheur Basin Redband

Another view of the river

After finishing up fishing and returning to camp, a large thunderhead was moving in and with extremely bad mosquitoes, we made the choice to go ahead and skip camping here and continuing on to our next destination in the Whitehorse Basin to fish for some Cutthroat. Oregon south of the Steens Mountains is extremely sparsely populated and we drove for over an hour without seeing any oncoming traffic. The road to the stream that I planned on fishing in the Whitehorse basin lead us up Trout Creek in the Alvord Basin which was once home of the now extinct Alvord Cutthroat; a victim of hybridization with introduced Rainbow Trout.

An old homestead along Trout Creek, the former home of the Alvord Cutthroat Trout

We arrived at the creek and I started catching fish almost as soon as I started fishing. The first fish that I hooked was an impressive about 15" Cutthroat which managed to shake the size 18 nymph just before I could net it. Once I figured out that this creek was going actually to produce some fish, I took a quick break and we went ahead and set up camp and make some dinner. As I took in my surroundings, I was amazed by the amount of life found along the creek in this parched country, far from civilization. On the walk back to the creek I had a deer run across the road in front of me, and there were jack rabbits scurrying around in every direction.

A small waterfall on the creek

A streamside lizard

Once I got back to fishing,  I found that the fish were especially susceptible to small black nymphs and most good pieces of holding water held a Cutthroat. I fished until dark and caught a good number of Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat, many of which seemed very resistant to letting me photograph them.

A Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat

Day 3: Wednesday June 28th 2006: After getting up, I went back to the creek to do a bit more fishing. However, overnight there had been some thunderstorms upstream, which had raised the flows and colored the creek up a bit and put the fish down. Despite this a little ways upstream I was able to find a series of beaver ponds, and using a Zug Bug nymph I was able to catch a few more fish.

Looking at the creek from the top of a ridge

Me at the Whitehorse Basin stream

After leaving the creek we headed to Winnemucca, Nevada and got hotel room for the night to rest and regroup for the drive home.

Day 4: Thursday June 29th 2006: We left Winnemucca and headed to northeastern Oregon to catch some Columbia Basin Redband, however this time luck was not with me as all of the rivers in this area were blown out from thunderstorms and snow melt. We decided to camp on the Lostine River, as it was one of the few areas that we found were it was not raining.

The Lostine River valley

Day 5: Friday June 30th 2006: When we got up in the morning, the rivers were still blown out and way to high to fish, so we cut our losses and headed home with an uneventful 6 hour drive home.