Fishing in the highcountry

[SashaT]

There are those trips that you look forward to, the types of trips that have a narrow window of when the fish are there. When it is over for the year, a mental clock starts ticking down the days until you can return. Our trip started off sort of by accident, a friend sent me a text with a pic of a fish. I immediately recognized the specific type of fish and the background looked familiar. I replied back “where were you at?” Already knowing the answer, I was not surprised by his reply. Now this was interesting indeed as the fish normally are up in that area around July not the end of May. Another interesting bit of information is that last year during the normal time, the fish were not there.

Not wanting to miss out this year and after some texts back and forth, it was decided that a trip up there on the 1st was a better idea than work. Another friend of ours would also join us for our trip to our spot as he too had a rough time the year prior. Once everyone was confirmed, it was decided to meet at his house.

The night before, I couldn’t seem to fall asleep, looking over at the clock seeing 11:30 I thought that 4 and a half hours of sleep will have to do. I actually didn’t even get that much, around 3 something a huge thunderstorm rolled into town. It was loud enough that my kids were all scared, my wife tried to keep them calm but I ended up waking up anyway. Looking over at the clock and seeing that it was almost 4, I decided to just get up and get ready to go.

Once we all met up, we quickly got the truck packed and headed out. Despite the much anticipated trip, the drive seemed to go by pretty fast. As we drove on the forest service road, it started to rain pretty steady. As we got closer to our destination, the rain intensified a little. Luckily the rain did not cause any issues with the river despite sticking around until just before noon.

Once we were at our spot, we wasted no time getting into the water, the fishing was a bit slow at first but it was still pretty early in the morning.

After a little while the first fish came to hand.

Soon after the first one, things started to really pick up, the three of us were having a blast catching all of these good looking wild native cutthroats.

Around 6PM and after each of us catching more than enough fish to make anyone happy, we decided to call it a day. As we made the long drive back to town, each of us despite being tired was still excited from the awesome day that we had. Once back in town, we decided that we need to head back up there soon before the fish are gone for another year.

 

[The_Traveler]

Nice pictures of fish.
I think the cutthroat is the most beautiful fresh water fish.

 

[spiralout462]

Beautiful shots! I am jealous! I moved to the coast 18 years ago and have missed trout fishing ever since.

 

[weepete]

Nice! I was out myself on Sunday with a mate. Fishing is a funny game, some days you can't get anything right and struggle for a fish or two. Other days you can't do anything wrong and hammer them. I'd a day of the latter thankfully, looks like you did too. Well done!

 

[Derrel]

What, are these lake-run cutts that migrate back up into the rivers/streams to spawn? They sure are beautiful fish!

 

[SashaT]

Thanks everyone! It was a great trip that I really enjoyed. To answer your question Derrel, yes these fish are adfluvial. Typically they migrate in early July; however, this year and last, they have been migrating early. Last year was a bust because the forest service road to access the area was snowed in until July 1st. The population in the valley over are fluvial and migrate as well but there is no lake for them to spend any time in. Interestingly enough they are not as colorful.