Wyoming Double Cutt Slam

Fishing Fishing Reports
1

So I’ve done Wyoming Cutt Slam before, but never in one trip. So I decided to change that. Halfway through, I also decided that I wanted to take it even further. I wanted to catch each subspecies of Cutthroat out of at least two bodies of water.

I started off with the Bonneville’s in a stream I hadn’t fished before. Well, technically, I fished way upstream from here last year and caught nothing. In this stretch, the fishing was still fairly tough. I had a couple of refusals from some 12-14" fish, and did catch one little Bonneville:

Then I moved over to another stream that I caught some fish out of last year. This was a pretty small stream, so when I fished here last year I used my 3 weight and didn’t bring a net. That worked really well for all of the 4" fish that I was catching. Last year I came upon a hole and threw a size 18 generic black dry fly up into a little seam and a fish immediately rose to it. This was not a 4" fish! He got me into fast current, and I couldn’t chase him downstream fast enough. With the light rod I couldn’t control him, and without a net he was nearly impossible to land. After what seemed like 30 seconds (but was probably only about 5-10), the fly pulled out.

So this year I very intentionally brought my 5 weight and net. And it’s a good thing I did. When I got to the same hole where I lost the fish last year I threw a little dry fly through there about 4 or 5 times to no avail, so I tied on a size 8 black wooly bugger. The very first drift through there the line tightened up! Big fish! He got me out in the current, but this time I was prepared. I chased him about 3 holes downstream and finally got him into the net.

I obviously can’t definitively say that he was the same fish (in my mind the fish I lost last year was bigger, but that may just be my fisherman’s imagination - then again, keep reading…). Either way, I definitely felt redeemed.

But like I said, keep reading. Two holes later the same wooly bugger hooked into another big fish. This one didn’t put up near the fight that the first one did, but I’m still very glad I had my 5 weight and a net. In 10 minutes I caught the biggest cutthroat of my life, twice.

The picture doesn’t do this fish justice. It was late in the evening, and I had to use flash, but this fish was absolutely gorgeous. He was a much deeper color than even this picture shows. Not to mention, this was clearly an old fish. His jaw was actually starting to hook around and was just gnarly.

The next morning I headed up to a lake which holds pure-strain Bonneville Cutthroats. This fishing wasn’t as good as it has been in the past, but it was still a blast.

I caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-15 fish, and I saw all but one of them before I cast to it. The only exception was when I cast to one fish, and another fish that I hadn’t seen raced to the fly and got there first.

One of the traits that supposedly differentiates Bonneville’s from other Cutthroats is a more deeply forked tail. So there you go…

2

That evening, I headed over across the Divide to the stream where I caught several Colorado River Cutthroat last fall. I started downstream in some great looking water, but couldn’t find a fish to save my life. So I moved upstream to where I caught most of my fish last year. I had a missed strike from about a 3" fish, but that was it. The beaver pond that held dozens of fish last year was practically barren this year. Hmmm.

I began to panic a little bit. I fished two streams last year that supposedly held CRC’s, but this is the only one I found them in, and now I couldn’t catch a fish to save my life. So I moved way upstream to some pretty small water. Bingo! They weren’t big, but they were definitely Colorado River Cutts.

It was getting late in the evening, so I just caught a couple and then moved up to set up camp.

The next day I went after Snake River Cutts. It was a tough day. The fish weren’t active at all until about 2 PM, which I expected. I didn’t expect it to be so tough after that. I missed a couple of fish on an FEB hopper, then finally caught one out from under a nice grassy cut bank.

Then I proceeded to get refusals from, miss, or lost about 10 fish in a row. Strikes were fairly few and far between, and I wasn’t having any luck when I actually did get one.

By dusk, I’d still just caught the one fish. I was fishing a hole just upstream from where I pitched my tent when a fish rose about 3 times in a row. He was rising in some slack water across some very fast current. Not the easiest place to get a good drift through. I tried to high stick a dry fly across there, and got a couple of refusals, but no hookups. Then nothing. So I decided to wade downstream of him (the current was deep and fast here), and try to get to where I could cast straight upstream or nearly so. I got out in the current, and waited for him to start rising again. And waited. And waited. Finally, he started rising again, so I threw a fly out there and bam! Got him! Not the biggest fish, but definitely rewarding considering I spent a good 15-20 minutes targeting this one fish.

The next day was Saturday, and I was determined to watch my OSU Cowboys play at Texas A&M that afternoon at 1:30 - right in the middle of prime fishing time. Oh well. It was worth it.

But on my way to Jackson to watch the game, I drove over a stream where I tried unsuccessfully to catch Colorado River Cutthroats. Looking down from the bridge, I saw a bunch of little bitty fish sitting in a beaver pond. Time to stop!

They may be small, but they’re fierce. Caught about 15 of these little guys in short order:

Driving out, I passed a hole where I saw a much bigger fish holding. I was cutting it short on making it in time to see my game, but I had to stop! I had on a little ant, and he came up to look at it, but refused it. Then he went deep, but I could still see him. He wasn’t coming up for a dry though. So I ran back to the truck and grabbed my nymph box. I tied one on (don’t remember what) and made a cast. The nymph went right in front of him, and he grabbed it. What a monster!

3

Then I watched Oklahoma State come back from a 20-3 halftime deficit to beat #8 Texas A&M 30-29!

But this is a fishing forum, so back to the fishes.

That evening, I stopped to fish a new stream that I’d never been to before, but had heard a positive report on.

The first hole I fished produced a nice 9" Yellowstone Cutthroat.

But that was it. I fished a ways upstream from there to no avail. The next morning, I fished downstream in some beautiful water, but didn’t see a single fish.

I thought about moving on, but the report I’d heard described this stream so glowingly that I had to give it another try. I headed a couple miles upstream and tried it again. I’m glad I did! For about 2.5 hours the fishing was fantastic for 9-12" Yellowstone Cutthroats. The fish were holding tight to cover underneath cut banks, but would gladly chase a brown wooly bugger.

I’m not all the convinced that I see a difference in the tails between a Yellowstone and a Bonneville Cutthroat, but whatever.

4

Sunday evening, I headed over to one of my favorite watersheds to fish one of the upper tributaries. The fishing is great and it’s some of the best scenery you could imagine.

Unfortunately, the brook trout are slowly but surely taking over this high up in the watershed. Four years ago, it was about 2:1 brookies to cutthroats. This year, it was probably around 4:1.

There are still a few Yellowstone Cutts around though.

This is some of my favorite water to fish. It’s a freestone stream, and it’s almost all riffle-pool type water. The fish are stacked up in there, and it’s practically impossible not to catch fish. They hold in seams, they hold in the middle of the current, they hold in the tops of pools, they hold in the bottoms of pools. And they water’s shallow enough that it’s practically all dry-fly fishing.

Just before dusk, this guy smashed a royal humpy. Again, the picture doesn’t do him justice, as he was one of the most colorful Yellowstone Cutthroat I’ve ever caught.

5

Monday was epic. If it wasn’t the best day I’ve ever had, it was very close.

I walked downstream about 2 miles from the access, and fished my way back up. It’s just like the previous stream, I described, except bigger. The river is bigger and the fish are bigger. There are also some more deep holes which hold some big fish.

The first hole that I fished on my way back up produced this little fella. Unfortunately, I also missed about 3 other fish, at least one of which was bigger than the one I did catch.

Down here, it was a pretty even ratio of brookies to cutts. And the cutts averaged about 10-14".

At one point, I hadn’t caught any fish in about 3 pools and was starting to get a little frustrated. Then I remembered where I was and I wasn’t so frustrated anymore.

About 2:30 in the afternoon, I came upon a really nice, deep pool. I threw a size 14 royal humpy out there, and watched a huge head come up and suck it down. I literally said out loud, “oh geez!” This was a big fish. I set the hook with a strip strike and the fish was on. Normally, when you hook a fish, he’ll give a little head shake or a roll or something like once he realizes that he’s hooked. Not this guy. As soon as I set the hook, he bolted upstream. Before I could let the line out of my hand it went tight and he popped my fly right off. As quickly as it started, it was over. Oh well. I’m actually surprised that I wasn’t very disappointed. Just seeing a fish that big come up and take a fly was worth it. What little disappointment I had didn’t last long.

About 125 yards upstream there was another nice, deep hole. As I came up on it, I saw a fish rise. So I threw another humpy right into the middle of the pool, and a big fish came up for it. I was better prepared this time. From what I could tell, there were two fish in the pool. A big one and a little one. When I hooked the big one, the little one freaked out! This big fish was going crazy, and I think the little fish was probably more scared than he was. Was he about to get eaten? This ended up being the biggest Yellowstone Cutthroat I’ve caught. He wasn’t as big as the one I broke off, but I was still happy.

Anyway, a little bit further upstream I was walking along a steep bank and noticed a little brush hanging out over the stream in what was an otherwise unproductive looking stretch of water. I thought I might as well give it a try. As soon as the fly drifted by the brush, this guy raced out and nailed it!

A little farther upstream, I caught the biggest brookie I’ve ever landed. He’s not huge by any means, but considering the water I usually fish, he’s much bigger than the average brook trout I catch.

I don’t fish a lot of brown trout water, and this definitely isn’t brown trout water. I caught a 10" brown 4 years ago about 3 miles downstream from this spot, but otherwise I’ve only caught brookies and cutts out of this stream.

Until I got back to the truck. There was a pine tree laying across the water with a nice hole below it. A humpy right behind the brush brought this guy up. The biggest brown I’ve ever caught.

So in one day, I caught my biggest Yellowstone cutthroat, my biggest brook trout, and my biggest brown trout out of the same stream.

Oh, and just upstream from my truck I noticed this contraption.

It took me a while to figure it out. Was this supposed to prevent people from floating downstream? This isn’t a big enough stream to float and it’s all on public land anyway, so that didn’t make any sense. Finally, I realized that it was a bridge. There had been a fire in this area, and the firefighters put together this makeshift bridge to access it. They cut a tree down, then cut it in half lengthwise, secured it across the river, and added a handrail to boot. Ingenious.

6

… Patrick.

Great variety of water and quite the collection of fishies in hand while travelling some truly beautiful areas of Wyoming … all brought together in a fun fishing report.

John

7

Awesome fish!!!

8

Excellent story and fantastic pictures! Thank you for sharing!

9

Last day. I still needed to catch a Snake River Cutthroat out of another stream to complete the double-slam. One of my favorite streams holds both Snake River Cutthroats and Yellowstone Cutthroats. Both are native to the stream, and their ranges overlap here.

This guy is clearly of the Yellowstone (large-spotted) variety. I actually caught the same fish last year. But you’ll have to read the “Same Fishies” thread to get that story.

Upstream a way, a side channel splits off from the main river, and the fishing is fantastic. At the end, the branch makes a 90? bend to head back to the main stream, and the hole is always loaded with fish. When I came up on it, I noticed a couple of fishing sitting high in the water column. So I took off the wooly bugger I had on and put on a dry. The first cast two fish raced to the fly, got there at the same time and knocked each other out of the way! Neither one got it. Next cast had the same result. Even on the third cast, they both tied and neither won. So finally I decided I better just pick one and cast to his side. I picked the fish on the left. He got the fly to himself that time.

At the point where that side channel splits off, there’s an amazing pool. The fish aren’t big, but I can usually expect to catch at least 10 fish out of it. This time, they were all on dry flies.

This guy is clearly of the Snake River (fine-spotted) variety.

This one, however, is definitely a Yellowstone cutthroat.

This one looks kind of in-between.

And that was the end of it. in 7 days I fished 9 streams and 2 lakes. Two of the streams I’d never fished, and two more I’d never caught anything out of.

I caught Bonneville cutthroats, Colorado River cutthroats, Snake River cutthroats, brown trout, brook trout and whitefish. I caught my two biggest cutthroat (both Bonnevilles), my biggest Yellowstone cutthroat, my biggest brown trout, my biggest brook trout, and probably somewhere around my third biggest whitefish.

I also saw one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen (elk either chasing themselves or being chased around a lake), the biggest bull moose I’ve ever seen, and the most stars I’ve ever seen.

I should do this more often.

10

Wow, what a great post. I saw the bridge, and knew immediately what it was, as it had been reported by the ShoshoneNF folks about that bridge. Heh

Looks like you had a truly epic time in some of my home waters. Thanks for the post… now I feel like I need to get out there, and do a bit more exploring of my waters.

Paul