A Few Little Cutts

An early fall trip was planned with Reese Femreite, a friend who has just started getting into flyfishing. My original plan was to visit the Tucannon River, a nice sized stream with a good number of fish that has fished well for me in the past in late September, however, consulting the State of Washington's ever changing regulations, I found the section I normally fish now closes to fishing on August 15 (so the state allows fishing in this section for a whopping 2.5 months out of the year! I long for Utah and their mostly year-round regulations...). Made alternate plans to visit the South Fork Tieton River (above the 10 miles of stream closed year-round to protect bull trout). It's big enough to practice some casting, easy size for wading, and a past visit found some nice cutts here.

Six AM start with a stop for a #6 at McD's got us to the trailhead at about 8:30, with clear blue skies and a temp of 35°F. That brought the waders out of the bag, which was a good thing as the stream is also painfully cold even this late in the year. We made our way through a lot of pocket water and shallow riffles without a sign of any fish, either to the fly or darting for the shadows after being spooked. That was my memory of this stream from my past visit.

Pretty water, not a lot of fish

Finally we came to a deep hole with a couple current streams entering from the side. Reese was tossing an irresistible Wulff which disappeared on about the third drift down the edge of the first current stream. A quick set and he had a nice little cutthroat to hand, his first fish ever on a dry fly!

Reese hooked and landed the first fish he ever had rise to a dry!

We found a few more here, some hooked and to hand, some missed (including the largest fish we saw on the day, perhaps an 11 or 12 inchers that Reese couldn't get the hook into). After a good bit more walking through mostly fishless pocket water, we came to another deep hole where a half dozen fish were actively feeding on the surface. I had a renegade on by this time, and with a sideways cast to get around some logs dropped the fly in the path of the fish and watched as one slowly rose up from the bottom to sip the fly. A quick set and this beautiful cutt came to hand.  

Love the pink hues!

We couldn't fool any more in this hole, but it was sure fun to watch them feed. With the sparse fish, we were ready to call it a day on this stream. Then we rounded a bend in the stream and were greeted by this view of the Goat Rocks rising above the stream and Conrad Meadows. What an end to our visit!

We made a quick stop at the South Fork Tieton falls a couple miles downriver, a pretty little fall that would be quite impressive in the spring with high water. 

Then made a stop along the Naches River on the way home to see what we could find. A much bigger river, but the fish we found were about the same size, a few 6 to 8 inch rainbows brought an end to our fishing. Burgers and stuff at the Laredo Drive-In in Naches replenished our energy for the drive home. Crisp fall temps, a few pretty little cutts, amazing views, and great company. A good start to fall!

Start of the California Heritage Trout Challenge?

Driving home from San Francisco after helping my daughter and son-in-law with their move, I found myself with a choice - a quick 12-hour drive directly home, or a more leisurely 15-hour route through Lassen Volcanic National Park and then through some remote high desert country east of the Sierra/Cascade mountains. Once I discovered there's a tiny stream to visit in those remote high desert lands where trout can be found, the choice became obvious. What's three more hours of driving when you can fish for tiny trout in an isolated stream on the way? More precisely, the Goose Lake redband trout, a subspecies endemic to just a few streams in northeastern California/southeastern Oregon. So I rolled out of San Francisco shortly after 5 am heading for the hills.

First stop was a small stream in Lassen NP reported to have a population of brook trout. Fished a bit of a meadow section without seeing a fish to the fly or darting away as I walked up the stream. Finally, below the culvert passing under the highway, I saw a few small trout feeding in the tailout. Got a couple to rise to the fly, but didn't get the hook into any. With limited time and not a lot of action, I decided to accept the skunk and continue on my way (after trying a few more holes upstream). Although maybe no fish were brought to hand, but it's hard to call it a skunk when you get to fish in a place as beautiful as this!

Kings Creek in Lassen Volcanic National Park

A few more hours on the road brought me to Goose Lake, a large lake that is sometimes there, sometimes dried up. I could see water in the distance, but the lake was not the target. A few miles up a gravel road to the east, a small creek on public land was reported to have a population of Goose Lake redband trout. When the lake is full, some of these trout can migrate to the lake and grow large, but in the small tributary streams, a 12-inch fish would be a monster. 

I drove to where Google Maps had shown a section of the stream running through a meadow area and found a lovely little creek, a bit smaller than I expected, but plenty big to hold fish. And fish there were, in every long stretch of flat water with sufficient depth. From the first drop of my fly, I was getting strikes. After missing a few, I got the hook into this beautiful little Goose Lake redband. This subspecies is noted as being quite pale with a lemon-yellow body, especially below the lateral line. This one fit the description perfectly.

A Goose Lake redband

Hoppers, renegades, a wet caddis were all equally attacked, but the hooking ratio was really low. They were really fast or I was really slow. It was a little easier to get the fish on the hook with the smaller flies. All ranged from about 4 to 9 inches. After my allotted hour, I headed back to the car. Seven more hours to home, but the smile I was left with stayed with me all the way (I pulled in the garage at 1:30 am).

Beautiful little creek for my first California trout

I later discovered that California has a challenge similar to the Utah cutthroat slam, called the Heritage Trout Challenge. You have to catch six of the eleven species of trout native to California in their native waters. Since I now have the first one down, and my daughter and son-in-law will be in California for the next few years, it looks like a challenge that I will have to accept. So watch for a few more posts from California in the future!

An Unexpected Trip Back to Utah, Time to Finish My Cutthroat Slam

I just returned from Utah a couple of weeks ago, short the Bear River cutthroat to finish my third Utah Cutthroat Slam. I know where to find them, but figured it might be next year before I made it back to finish it off...or not. My youngest daughter is moving from Provo, Utah, to San Francisco. They were going to rent a truck, but ended up selling most of their stuff which made it so we could fit it all in my RAV4 and their Crosstrek. So I volunteered to drive, Washington to Utah to California and back home, 34 hours total of driving. Sure, it's to help my daughter and son-in-law, but also - a chance to finish my slam. The Logan River is mostly on the way, it only adds two more hours of driving...

Up at 4:30 am for a 5:00 am start, I figured I could make it on the river between 3 and 4 pm. And so I did. Being a Saturday, there were fisherman at nearly every pull-out in the lower canyon. I decided to head to a small tributary, where a short section near the gravel road had been good to me in the past. I was on the water about 4 pm. I'd loaded a Turcks tarantula on the line last night, so I was ready to go a minute or two after stopping. It was just as I remembered it, a typical Utah creek, not too brushy in this section running below a sagebrush covered hill. First hole, two casts, two swirls/looks, two misses (or rejections). Encouraging, but they didn't seem to love the Turcks. I switched to a Morrish hopper with a psycho prince caddis green dropper, and in a pocket above the head of the first hole, my fly again disappeared. I lifted and up came a beautiful Bear River cutt on the dropper, in the range of 13 to 14 inches, but before I could get the net off my back it was off the hook. I wasn't that worried, certain now that there would be more. And there were. In the next hole up, I saw the flash, the dry went down, and I got my Bear River cutthroat in the net. Mission accomplished, slam complete!

A beautiful Bear River cutthroat to complete my slam

So with the slam complete after ten minutes on the water, I could head for my daughter's house in SLC...or I could keep fishing. Yup, good choice. I was driving 36 hours, over the next few days, I should at least fish an hour! I did, and was able to get about eight more fish to hand, also missing about that many.

Found a couple browns along with the cutts, about half on the dropper, half on the dry. So fun to watch the cutts rise slowly up from the bottom to take down the hopper!

I was committed to seeing my granddaughter before she went to bed, so I held myself to mostly an hour (OK, it was an hour and 15 minutes), but I did make it to SLC with plenty of time to see her. 

Wish I had more than a day to drive to San Francisco, or from San Francisco home. There's some thin blue lines running of small mountain ranges along the way that I'm sure are uniquely beautiful places in the otherwise barren landscape. And my investigating found some held trout, but they will have to wait for another day.