Colorado Adventure Part 2: Hayden Creek Cutthroat

Saturday August 26th: My second day of hunting for native trout in Colorado dawned to soggy overcast conditions after an extremely restless night of sleep in the car (see here for part one). However, by 6:45AM, the rain finally stopped and after a quick breakfast, it was time to hit the trail once again. My target for the morning, was a curious and unique form of Cutthroat only known to one small stream - the South Prong of Hayden Creek in the Arkansas watershed. What makes these trout so unique is that they are an exact genetic match for the "Greenback" Cutthroat that once occurred alongside the Yellowfin Cutthroat in Twin Lakes, Colorado. Genetics revealed that these "Greenbacks" were in fact Colorado River Cutthroat, but with a genetic signature not found in any populations west of the continental divide.  While it is still unclear how these trout found their way into the Arkansas basin, it is clear that they were abundant in Twin Lakes in the 1880's, but like the Yellowfin Cutthroat were unable to withstand the introductions of nonnative species in the lakes and vanished within a few short decades. These fish held on in one last refuge until 2016, when a fire burned through Hayden Creek and if it were for a last minute rescue operation they would have been lost entirely. With the Yellowfin Cutthroat still believed to be extinct, Cutthroat reintroduction efforts in the Arkansas basin have focused on establishing these Hayden Creek Cutthroat in a number of refuge populations around the watershed. So for me after the revelation that the Colorado River Cutthroat (see here) that I had caught in Rocky Mountain National Park years ago were in fact Green River Cutthroat, these fish would check that box again, while also representing a particularly unique lineage of Cutthroat Trout.

The spot that I had picked to target these rare Cutthroat was among the first transplant populations and while the Cutthroat had apparently failed to establish in the upper reaches of the stream, several friends of mine had succeeded in finding them in the lower reaches, which is were I planned on going. By 7:00 AM, I was on the trail, hiking through a forest of sparsely spaced Pine trees. Compared to the day before, the trail started out at a much easier grade and was at a slightly lower elevation, which helped me make good timing and feel like I wasn’t completely out of shape.

A wet start to the day

While the hike the evening before had been stunning, this one was a much more standard walk in the woods, although the few brief views of the valley through the clouds did add to its charm.

A wet gray start to the day

With the relatively easy hike, within a half hour I could hear the sound of running water and was descending into the creek valley. Upon arriving at the creek, it was immediately clear that this would be some challenging brush whacking and fishing, as the stream was extremely high gradient, with dense riparian vegetation. However, there was a nice looking pool right at the trail crossing that looked like excellent holding water for trout, so it was time to get to it.

A pool on the creek

While the first pool looked great, multiple drifts failed to produced any sign of trout so I started working my way upstream. With the high gradient it was slow going, but there were plenty of plunge pools. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to hold any trout and with the crystal clear water I really should have been able to see the fish if there were any. After covering a dozen or so really great looking spots, the creek was really beginning to appear devoid of trout. I am not one to give up easily, so I decided to go back to the trail and try my luck downstream. Despite finding more great looking holding water, the same scenario repeated itself and I didn’t see as much as the slightest sign of a trout. While this was always a possibility when I was planning the trip it was disappointing. This was definitely going to set my schedule back a bit, but I had a couple backup spots along my route and as such I decided to cut my losses and head for a different stream. I moved as fast as I could on the hike out and despite taking one wrong turn, by 9:00 AM I was back at the trailhead and hitting the road once again.

Other than the stocking history, I had very little to go off of with the next stream and even had to guess which stretch of stream would have the Hayden Creek Cutthroat in it. However, it was the closest along my route so if it didn't pan out it shouldn’t put me too far off my schedule to at least check it out. Based on the research I had done, the benefit of this spot based on the timing of the introduction, was that if it had been successful, by all rights the population should be well established with multiple age classes at this point. 

My drive took me along the Arkansas River which was running high and off color due to the storm the night before, and while it was gorgeous, knowing that the Yellowfin Cutthroat which once inhabited its waters were now lost to time was heavy on my mind as I ascended the valley.

The Arkansas River - once home to the Yellowfin Cutthroat

I made great timing on the drive and by the time I turned off on the road to the creek the cloudy skies of the morning were finally starting to give way to afternoon sunshine. The drive into the mountains, which should have been gorgeous, was marred by the legacy of mining, with derelict structures and equipment left in place and large swathes of land still barren.

The legacy of mining was certainty apparent on the drive in to the stream

About 3/4 of way into the creek I got an unwelcome surprise as there was a set jersey barriers blocking the way. Or at least partially blocking the way as the was a bit of a gap in between two of the barriers looked like it just might be wide enough for a small car to fit through. Having already be shut out on one stream, I wasn’t going to give up easily on this one and decided to see if I could squeeze through. I angled the rental car towards the barriers and after getting out to verify it would fit slowly inched on through and was back on track. A quarter mile up the road there was another set of barriers but luckily there was a large gap in this one and I sailed right on through. Another five minutes of bumpy dirt roads later, and I was standing at nearly 11,500 feet of elevation, amidst the peaks of the Rocky Mountains on a rise a couple hundred feet above the creek and eager to reach the water. I quickly got the ball rolling and grabbed my gear, found an old two track road I had seen on the satellite imagery and started my descent into the valley below.

The meadows on the walk into the second stream

Regardless of whether or not this stream held fish, the surroundings were absolutely stunning, with a crystal clear creek tumbling over rocks as it meandering through a verdant alpine meadow surrounded by peaks that rose to over 14,000 feet and towered above the tree line. While I would have been happy to just sit and immerse myself in my surroundings, I was here for a reason and I quickly directed my attention to the stream.

The second stream of the day was gorgeous!

In the first piece of holding water that I came to, I briefly hooked a fish but only saw a bit of green, yellow and red that I feared might be a Brook Trout before it popped off. Regardless of what it was, it was more life than I had seen in the last stream and in the next pocket upstream a trout grabbed my dry fly. This time I got a solid hook set and luckily when I brought the fish to the net, I found it was a beautiful Hayden Creek Cutthroat! 

Success! A Hayden Creek strain Colorado River Cutthroat

Despite being essentially considered a Colorado River Cutthroat, these Hayden Creek Cutthroat certainly are a unique fish, and were a bright yellow colored with red blotches along the lateral line and moderate sized spot concentrated near the caudal peduncle. The first Cutthroat was soon followed by another and another, and this stream proved to be one where every likely looking spot held a trout. On top of that, there was no shortage of good holding water, with every corner and plunge pool screaming trout. The trout in the stream which averaged 6” to 8” were also abundant and eagerly rose to my Royal PMX, with a few going for the dropper as well.

A beautiful Cutthroat in the photarium

My original plan was for a quick in an out trip, but between the beautiful surroundings, excellent fishing and unique trout, I just couldn’t pull myself away from the creek and before I knew it several hours had slipped by.

One last look at the stream before hitting the road

While I was reluctant to move on, I still had many miles ahead of me a knew it was time to get back on the road again. Although the morning started a bit rough, the second stream had far exceeded my expectations and with another fish under my belt the trip was coming together nicely. Next I was headed for the Flat Tops of northern Colorado with high hopes of finding some native Green River Cutthroat Trout.

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.

Too many Pink Salmon

After my first couple trips looking for native trout in western Washington I had half a day free and decided to head up to one of my favorite rivers to see what I could find. My goal for the day was to see if I couldn't find some larger migratory Coastal Rainbow Trout or anadromous Coastal Cutthroat entering freshwater anticipating the upcoming feast of salmon eggs. As such I came equipped with three rods, one for streamers, a nymph rig and a dry rig with a mouse pattern tied on to try in the log jams.

A beautiful day on the water

When I arrived at the river, it was running low and clear and I immediately pulled out my nymph rig first and started working a riffle that dropped off into a deep run. While observing the pool I thought I saw some movement in the shady back part of the riffle and I decided to start out with my nymph rig to see what I could find. On my first cast, my indicator shot under and I was immediately hooked into a hot fish. This fish wasn't fighting like at trout and seemed to be bigger than the typical trout that I find in the river and sure enough when I got it close to shore I realized that it was a decent sized male Pink Salmon fresh from the saltwater, that apparently wanted to eat a caddis fly nymph.

Not exactly what I was looking for

While I initially thought this was a fluke, the same thing happened on the next cast as well and that was just a sign of things to come. It seemed that these fresh Pinks were extremely aggressive and occupying all of the best holding water. The only the only rig that they didn't seem interested in was the mouse pattern and my nymph rig and black sculpin pattern would last a few moments in the water before getting hammered. With these fish running 3lbs to 7lbs, this certainly isn't a bad problem to have, but I still really wanted to find a trout or two.

Yet another Pink Salmon

I ended up taking to fishing either the fastest riffles or the mouse pattern, which did rise a nice trout behind a downed tree, but other than that there were just too many Pinks to effectively fish and after a few hours on the river I decided to switch gears.

With no trout landed on the river, headed cobble beach for Coastal Cutthroat on my way back. Conditions seemed to be good with little wind, and a decent tidal push, but the Cutthroat just weren't around and after a few fly swaps and covering some prime water it was time to admit defeat on the trout front.

No trout but a great way to end the day on the water

While there weren't any trout to be found, the Pink Salmon were a nice surprise and the weather and surroundings were hard to beat. The arrival of the Pinks indicates that the season is already starting to change and hopefully as the salmon stream in the trout fishing will pick up.

A case of mistaken identity

 Since I stated my native trout quest the classification of Cutthroat has seen some rather large changes, which have been primarily driven by an increased understanding of genetics. The first major shake up came with a study published by Metcalf et al. in 2012 and the discovery that what we knew as Greenback Cutthroat were actually Cutthroat from the Colorado River basin. Along with this revelation came another key finding that the Colorado River Cutthroat was actually comprised of three distinct lineages the Colorado River Cutthroat (termed the green lineage as they were originally believed to be Greenback Cutthroat), the Green River Cutthroat (Blue lineage) and the San Juan Cutthroat.

A Green River (Blue lineage) Cutthroat 

For me the initial impact of this discovery was that the Greenback Cutthroat I had caught, were not actually Greenbacks meaning I had yet to catch that subspecies and would have to wait to do so until they had recovered sufficiently. However, this also raised the question of what those “Greenbacks” I had caught actually were, Green River or Colorado River Cutthroat. It turned out that this question did not have a simple answer, as the primary broodstock used to recover the former “Greenback Cutthroat” was drawn from two streams Como Creek and Hunter Creek to raise the genetic diversity. And raise the genetic diversity it did, as Como Creek held Colorado River Cutthroat (Green lineage) while Hunter held Green River Cutthroat. The records I have found do suggest that Como Creek and thus Colorado River Cutthroat were the dominant lineage, but these former recovery populations of “Greenbacks” appear to be Green x Colorado River hybrids.

A Greenback Cutthroat? Nope a Colorado River Cutthroat with some Green River influence 

 

One of the other findings of the Metcalf et al. study was that due to past stocking many of the Cutthroat populations in the upper Colorado River that should Colorado River Cutthroat were actually Green River Cutthroat. For a long time I wondered about what the “Colorado River Cutthroat” I had caught in Rocky Mountain National Park in 2006 were, until recently when I found a map showing the genetics of the known populations. As it turned out the “Colorado River Cutthroat” I had caught were actually Green River Cutthroat, likely Trappers Lake strain from the extensive stocking that occurred over the last century. 

--UPDATE-- As if it wasn't challenging enough to ID Green vs Blue lineage, the most recent inventory of Cutthroat in Rocky Mountain National Park shows that indeed the fish I caught ARE green lineage or actual Colorado River Cutthroat. 

Green lineage Colorado River Cutthroat

For now I have updated my website with to account these mistaken fish, but in just over a week I will be heading to Colorado to hopefully find both the true Greenback Cutthroat. With any luck this trip will be successful and and in two weeks time I will have once again caught all of the extant subspecies of Cutthroat Trout.

Southwest Summer Getaway

Sometimes it is hard to believe where time goes, but this year marks my wife and my 10th Anniversary and to mark the occasion we decided to do something special and started planning a getaway. After an amazing trip to New Mexico two years ago, we that we decided to do something similar and after looking into the details we opted to fly into Albuquerque, NM do a loop through Southwest Colorado to Pagosa Springs and Mesa Verde before finish off with some time in Albuquerque before we flying back. While the focus of the trip was not on fishing, it did put us within a short distance from one of the last subspecies of Cutthroat that I needed to catch and I would have a morning with which to try my luck for them.

The subspecies of Cutthroat in question was the San Juan Cutthroat, which until just five years ago was assumed to be extinct. With their recent rediscovery, these fish are still in a precarious place as restoration efforts are still in their infancy and as such most remaining populations are still too sensitive to allow for angling. However, after getting in touch with the local biologist, there was one stream that appeared to be feasible and I set might sights on it as my target.

With the trip fast approaching, I put some extra time into packing so that unlike my camping trip to the North Cascades in July, this time there was no way I was going to forget anything and I made sure to double and triple check that all of my gear was accounted for before leaving. Then next thing we knew, the day of the trip had arrived and we were up by 4:30AM and on our way to the airport. Fortunately, we had a surprisingly smooth trip up I-5, through Sea-Tac Airport and with our fly right on time we were in the air in no time.

Blue skies above the clouds

With the exception infamously bumpy approach to Albuquerque, the flight was smooth and after grabbing our rental car we were on our way Colorado. Between the flight and drive, our first day was strictly a travel day, but the drive did not disappoint as we progressed from the desert near Albuquerque to the the weathered badlands as we passed Ghost Ranch known for its Cretaceous era fossil beds and then watched lightning sparking across the sky as we finally reached the forested slopes of the Rocky Mountains. By the time we reached Colorado the thunderstorms were behind us and we were greeted with blue skies stretching to the horizon as the sun started to sink towards the horizon. With just the morning to fish, I set my alarm for 6:00AM, but with a level of anticipation that only pursuing a new native trout can provide I found myself wide awake at 5:15 AM and decided to get up early to add a little extra extra fishing time into the schedule.

Sunrise over the Rockies

With the early start, I found myself driving through the foothills as the sun crested over the mountains and arrived at the creek by 6:30 AM. While I had brought both my 4WT and 1WT on the trip, upon arriving at the creek and realizing that it was a fair bit smaller than I have anticipated, I opted for the much short 6'6" 1WT. With this being new water for me, I also decided to go with my old standby Royal PMX but also added a Blowtorch nymph dropper so I would be ready whether they were focused on top or subsurface. As I stated making my way upstream, I initially found very little holding water, but at the first decent pocket I came to a trout rose to my dry, but unfortunately it didn't hook up and refused to come back for a second look. At least that was a sign the fish were there!

Not far upstream, I finally found a piece of really good looking holding water, as the creek came over a log and dug out a nice pool. The first couple casts in the outflow of the pool didn't get any attention, but once I put a cast into the slower water in the middle of the foam line a fish rose to my fly and I got a solid hook up.

The first good hole on the creek

This fish was much bigger than I would have expected, and gave my little 1WT a run for its money, but with no real obstacles to get hung up on after a minute or so I brought my first San Juan Cutthroat to the net, a beautiful 12"er.

My first San Juan Cutthroat

After snapping a few photos and briefly admiring the beautiful Cutthroat, I released it and continued upstream only to find another great looking spot just around the corner. 

A beautiful run on the creek

This next spot was quite exposed, so after checking that my back cast clear I snuck up on my knees and made a cast into the back third of the run. My fly only drifted a foot or two, before a trout slowly and confidently rose to engulf the dry fly. Again I got a solid hookup and after quick battle I brought another beautiful, this time 11" San Juan Cutthroat to hand.

Another gorgeous San Juan Cutthroat

After that fish, I picked up yet another large trout, this time about 12" on my dropper, before continuing upstream. It seemed that while small, this stream was one of those rare highly productive pieces of water able to produce unusually large fish. This became especially evident when I came across a particularly tricky piece of water to fish. What made this spot so challenging was the combination of overhanging brush for tight casting and downed tree in the water that had numerous branches still sticking just waiting to snag my dropper, requiring pin point accuracy. However, my little 1WT  was up to the task and I was able to land a good cast in the pool in the main seam just past the branches. As my dry fly drifted past a large rock at the back of the pool a large trout rose to intercept it. Lucky for me, after the first fish, my hooksets seemed to be on point this morning and I got a good connection with the trout, which immediately proved to be the largest I had seen yet. Now the tricky part was going to be keep it out of the wood with my little 1WT. The fish tried its hardest to shake me, diving into the branches a half dozen times, but miraculously it didn't hang up and I was finally able to bring the beautiful 15" brightly colored Cutthroat to the net. 

A 15" San Juan Cutthroat - without a doubt one of the most beautiful Cutthroat I have caught!

At this point, the stream had by far exceeded my wildest expectations and if anything my problem was that I had yet to catch a fish small enough to fish in my 12" photarium, which I have to admit is a great problem to have! With all pressure off, I continued working upstream, and came to yet another pool where, I spotted a few trout holding. The first fish that I targeted, I briefly hooked but it popped and darted to the head of the pool thankfully not spooking the other two trout. I took a little more care with the next fish and got a perfect presentation and it slowly rose and ate my dry fly, at which point I quickly fought it out of the tail of the pool in order to not spook the other fish I had eyes on. After releasing that fish, the next one would prove to be one of the more memorable of the trip. 

The Cutthroat

Having a clear line of sight on this fish and being I was careful not to spook it, I got into position and made my cast well in front of it. As my fly neared the fish, I watched the trout get in position and slowly rise to meet the dry fly, but unfortunately I mistimed my hook set and didn't hook up. While the fish hadn't spooked, it did become much more cautious after this and appeared to have caught on to my dry fly being fake, as the next five dead drifts got no response. Next I tried skating my dry, which got the fish to come over, put its nose on the fly and inspect it, but it ultimately decided not to take it. With the dry not working I tried something different and placed a cast so the dropper landed just a few inches in front of the trout, and bingo, fish on!

Success!

A meadow along the creek

Fishing continued much the same, with the creek opening up in some areas with good holding water, while other areas presented tight quarters that I decided to pass by and leave tot he trout as well earned refuges. It did seem that while the fish tended to be large the overall density of trout was not too high, with most pools only holding a single fish. Over the course of the morning, I finally managed to get a few fish the fit in the photarium as well and covered over a 1/2 mile of stream, catching around a dozen fish before running into a natural stopping point deciding it was time to turn around and head back down the mountain.

Finally a fish for the photarium

All and all, this this was an amazing morning and one outing that I am not likely to forget anytime soon. With how good the fishing was, I was even able to into town by 10:30AM, giving me the rest of the day to enjoy with the vacation my wife Alexis. While in Pagosa Springs, we spent the evening at the hot springs and exploring the town, before hitting the road the next day for Durango and Mesa Verde National Park. The whole time we were greeted with wonderful weather and amazing vistas. After doing some short hikes and seeing the amazing cliff dwellings Mesa Verde, we also decided to check out the awe inspiring ancient Puebloan ruins at Chaco Canyon on our way back to Albuquerque. 

The San Juan River in Pagosa Springs - once home to a robust fluvial population of San Juan Cutthroat

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park

Sunset over Mesa Verde from Far View Lodge

Chaco Canyon National Historic Park

Casa Bonita at Chaco Canyon

Sharing a wonderful adventure together!

All I can say is that this trip was amazing and the fishing for San Juan Cutthroat, was the cherry on top of a wonderful adventure celebrating 10 years together with my wonderful wife!

A taste of things to come

While I love summertime in the Pacific Northwest, my favorite time to be out fishing is as summer is coming to an end as this marks the start of the salmon spawning season. For those who know where to look the fishing in western Washington streams begins to resemble that in Alaska for the brief window when the trout are focused on eggs. While that season is still off on the horizon, the trout that key in on eggs in September and October are still around even if they are much hard to find. With that in mind, I was recently able to make a couple of outings on one of these special streams to see if I couldn't find any early takers.

Dyllon was able to join me on the first outing and given how early it was in the season, Dyllon opted to fish a streamer, while I brought two rods, also using a streamer as well as a double nymph rig with a cased caddis and egg dropper. My reasoning on the egg imitation was that the first salmon should be starting to enter the river and while they wouldn't be spawning yet, it should at least get the trout interested in eggs again. We only had a few hours to fish, but lucked out on our weather as it was a classic blue bird summer day perfect for wet wading. 

Upon hitting the river, we started working our way upstream fishing any likely looking water as we went. A couple runs upstream we saw our first signs of as Dyllon briefly hooked up with a 12" to 14" Cutthroat that had been holding in a trench next to a log, but unfortunately it popped off. The next corner upstream, which was a deep pool that slowly passed along the cliff face proved even more lively as shortly after we arrived are salmon rolled, signaling that yes indeed the season is upon us. Being slow and deep, Dyllon and I both opted for streams and within just a couple casts I spotted a nice Cutthroat in the 18" range chasing my streamer across the hole, but it was unwilling to commit. This ended up being the story of this spot, as we each had a few grabs, but mostly just saw Cutthroat inspecting our flies, with one even chasing my streamer right up to the rod tip. After putting in a solid 45 minutes on the hole with no hookups, we admitted defeat continued on. 

Dyllon working a streamer through a great piece of holding water

One thing about Pacific Northwest rivers, is that they are dynamic and each season requires relearning where all the best holding water is. As we worked our way upstream there had been subtle changes, with a run looking better here and a trench filled in there, but it wasn't until we were on the water for a couple hours that we saw the first major change. Luckily for us this was a serious improvement, as a couple channels that had previously be separate combined to create an amazing riffle and pool. I made one prospecting cast when we reached the pool, but it looked best fished from the opposite shore, so I decided to cross and flipped my nymph rig in as I went. I had almost reached the opposite bank and my indicator was perhaps a quarter of the way down the riffle, when it was sharply yanked under. Moments later, a massive Rainbow that was well over 20" came shooting out of the water, and I was hooked into a nice fish. For a minute or so, the fish stayed deep in the run, but then after a couple more leaps took off downstream like a freight train. I was able to get the fish to turn as it reached the tailout, but it kept working it way towards a braid at the end of the pool with a log in it. Dyllon was on the net and headed downstream to try and keep the fish from going down the channel. However, with Dyllon still working his way into position and the fish moving closer to the log, I put just a little too much pressure on it and the hook came flying back at me. Dyllon had a chance to get a good eye on the fish beforehand and estimated it at around 24".  Over a week later as I am writing this and that fish continues to haunt me, as I think of all of the things I could have done differently, but you just can't get them all.

After I lost the big one, Dyllon started working the pool with his streamer and after settling my heart rate down a bit I finally got back in with my nymph rig again. On the first cast, my indicator bobbed under again, but there was nobody there when I set, but on the very next cast when it went under again I got a solid hookset.  This fish wasn't nearly as big as the first one, but still put up a good fight, taking line and thrashing on the surface. However, after a couple minutes I was able to regain all of my line and Dyllon netted a beautiful bright 16" native Rainbow for me.

Not quite the big one, but still a nice native Rainbow at 16"

We worked the hole for a while longer, but there didn't seem to be any additional takers, and while we were nearing the end of our allotted time on the water we decided to try a couple more bends to see how the river had changed. Along the way we spooked on smallish Chinook and I found myself noting how all of the downed trees in the river would make for some great fun with a mouse pattern, before we came to a great looking run. Dyllon took point on this one and almost immediately had a Cutthroat dart out from under a downed tree to great his streamer, but he wasn't able to hook up. After one more grab, the Cutthroat refused to come back so I stepped in with my nymph rig but could find any willing takers. However, as I was fishing I started to notice shapes moving on the bottom and after a moment of observation noticed about a dozen Chinook tucked under a downed alder in the run. Dyllon and I watched the salmon for a few minutes, before realizing that we had gone over our time on the water and had beat feet back to the car.

Chinook Salmon holding water

After the great outing the Dyllon and I had, my buddy Chris let me know that he was free to for a quick morning outing and as our schedules lined up, I jumped at the opportunity to return the the river again. There were a couple differences with this outing right off the bat. The first was that unlike the last outing that was bright and sunny, this morning was starting off overcast and second was that this time in addition to the nymph and streamer rod I also brought along a 5 WT with a mouse pattern on it. The next thing we changed was starting out further upstream and working our way down to where Dyllon and I had ended our day.

The first pool that we came to had a massive log jam and looked like great streamer water and sure enough, Chris had a fish grab on his first cast, while I watched a 16"+ trout chase my streamer across the hole, but after that the fish refused to come back and we kept moving. We had similar results at the next couple holes, with Chris catching one small Coastal Cutthroat, before we got back to the water Dyllon and I had ended on. 

After finding a small hole with a lot of downed trees, I pulled out the mouse rig and started twitching it across the surface. About half way down the hole, I landed a cast an inch or two off the downed tree and just as I started skittering the mouse away a Cutthroat pull out from cover and inhaled it. I got a decent hook set but had to work hard to keep the 14" to 15" Cutthroat out of the trees. I succeed at keeping trout out of the wood, but just as I was bring it to the net, the hook popped loose and the Cutthroat darted back to its cover.

Mousing water

After my encounter with the mouse eating Cutthroat, we continued downstream and verified that the Chinook were all still tucked under their alder, but couldn't find any willing trout in the hole this time. Next we found ourselves back at the pools that had held the big trout on the last outing, but this trip wasn't the same as last time and after running multiple drifts through I didn't get any takes. However, when Chris threw his nymph rig in it didn't take long for him to get a grab and after a short fight he brought a small heavily spotted Rainbow to the net.

Chris' Rainbow

Shortly after Chris released his fish, the sun finally broke through the morning marine layer and the day started to warm up. Unfortunately, the fishing went icy cold and despite us cover another 1/2 mile of river we only saw a few more salmon as the trout appeared to disappear. However, it was still a gorgeous day on the water and I had fun twitching my mouse pattern along any structure I could find and we even had a couple Deer cross the river just downstream of us.

Mousing along a log jam

Deer crossing the river

Despite, not having many fish to hand, it appears that the season is off to a good start and while I am reluctant to see summer slip away especially with a couple trips for native Cutthroat on the horizon, I also now find myself longing for the cool crisp September days just around the corner.