But that wasn't why I was in the desert. It was time to go try to catch an extinct fish. It took a few wrong turns, but I finally made it to the Alvord stream. With the dry conditions this year, the stream was extremely low. And being late August, the grass was already really grown up around the stream. Combine that with a 20+ mph wind, and it wasn't easy fishing conditions. The hardest part, though, wasn't putting the fly down into a 6" window in a 20 mph wind, it was trying to get a good hook set in the fish without jerking them out of the water and off into who-knows where. With only 2-3' of tippet out the end of my rod, and catching fish in less than a foot of water, it would be easy to do. Since I was trying to avoid that, I missed a fair share of fish.



The first fish of the stream was a pretty obvious Lahontan cutthroat.



I picked up another Lahontan, before coming to a bend in the creek and seeing a small fish sitting in a feeding lane. I switched over to a little caddis fly and crawled into position. I dropped the fly down, but I couldn't see it, and with the wind, I couldn't hear if the fish rose to take it. So after a couple of seconds I just picked up, and there was a fish on the other end. Unfortunately, this one did go flying into the grass! I quickly scooped him up and he turned out to be a perfect representation of an Alvord cutthroat!



Notice his spotting pattern (i.e. almost none) compared to the Lahontan. As I continued on, I picked up a couple more that looked to be somewhere in between a Lahontan and an Alvord. I also hooked into another very good looking Alvord specimen, but he came off before I could land him. Here's one of the 'tweeners:



Unfortunately, if the powers that be don't do something soon, the Lahontans may once again hybridize the Alvords out of existence. Fortunately, the USFWS has started to take notice and is considering some action (finally!).

Anyway, it was time to move on and try to catch a Catlow Valley redband. These fish, like the rest of the desert trout, are amazingly adept at living under harsh conditions. They can tolerate very warm water and highly unstable flows. When I showed up to the stretch of stream I was hoping to find them in, I found... nothing. Not just no fish, but no water. So I moved up to the head of the stream and finally found a little water in it. Seeing the stream, I wasn't holding out much hope of finding trout.



But this high up, the water was still somewhat cool, and every little hole with 6" of water in it was teeming with trout.







Again, sorry for the lousy picture, but my camera was acting up again.