Fishing North Cottonwood Creek, Renita on a Quest for Her Colorado Cutthroat

 

Every year we hand out hundreds of our cards. We are lucky to meet so many people at our shows and we often tell them to give us a call if they ever get in our area. Few ever do and so it was a pleasant surprise when Sue and Les sent an email and asked if we would like to meet.

We met them at a Gulf Coast Gem and Mineral in 2016 and we even bought a fossil specimen from them, a beautiful crinoid, (a type of echinoderms, kind of like a starfish). So, we arranged to meet them at our place in Star Valley for a socially distanced barbecue.

They arrived and we had a pleasant afternoon as we talked of rock hounding and fishing trips. They were currently on an extended fishing trip in Wyoming. I showed them my cut slam award and told them that Renita and I were going to North Cottonwood creek, in the Wyoming Range, in the hopes of completing Renita's cut slam.

Now it’s a rough road up there and a long drive on gravel so I was surprised when Sue asked if they could tag along. We arranged to meet at the grocery store in Alpine and the next morning we met and then headed up the Greys River Road.

The road was horrible. It hadn’t been graded in quite a long time and the lower parts were so rocky that we had to slow down to about fifteen miles per hour. I told them to hang back, because of the dust, and I worried that they might not be too happy with the bad road. However, they are rockhounds and when we met at the Sheep Creek Road, thirty-five miles later, they were still smiling!

It’s only eight miles up the road to McDougal Gap, (Pass), and we stopped several times to take pictures. Heading down the road towards Daniel Junction, it was only a few miles of good road before we reached our fishing spot. Pulling over Les stopped and I pointed out a place for them to park and fish. Its important to not work the same water as fish become weary of the flies and become difficult to fish.

Gearing up, I told Renita I was not gong to fish until she had fulfilled her quest, to catch a Colorado Cutthroat trout. Wading down to the first hole she worked her fly, a purple haze size twelve, and quickly set the hook on a nice brook trout. Brook trout here were all introduced and actually are a plague in many Wyoming trout streams. The quickly overpopulate the streams and displace the native cutthroats.

Several more good-looking spots did not produce any fish and she moved making casts and caught another nice brook trout. The wind was blowing hard and it was extremely difficult to cast and to compound the problem the sides of the streams were lined with willows.

Still she patiently worked hole after hole until she reached a beaver dam. She made several casts and then another trout came out and hit her fly. She didn’t set the hook as it was a small fish and after watching her awhile I said she should go with a smaller fly.

Now the problem was that the wind had increased so much that every cast was blow back and she could not get her fly in the spot to catch the fish. I told her she needed to slap the fly hard, a bad technique as it usually spooks the fish. She didn’t understand so I took her fly rod and told her to watch me.

On the first cast I made a roll cast and slapping the fly on the spot was rewarded when a small trout darted out from the dam, took the dry fly, and hooked itself! I felt bad because when I landed the fish it turned out to be a Colorado Cutthroat.

Handing her rod back she emulated me and missed several smaller fish. I suggested we break for lunch, but she refused saying she was determined to catch one herself. Half an hour later she set the hook and almost jumped for joy when I told her it was a Colorado Cut.

Deciding to take a break we walked back to the truck and ate lunch. Sue drove up and joined us. She showed us her fish pictures and she had also caught three Colorado’s. She also mentioned that she had found an old and complete buffalo skull as she walked through the willows. We have never found any buffalo skulls in forty-two years of living in Wyoming. Talk about luck!

After lunch Renita and I headed back to the stream. The fish at the dam were not interested in biting and so we headed upstream to the next hole. Several holes later, Renita missed a nice fish and then caught another brook trout. It was a big hole and she continued to fish, setting the hook on another nice fish. I netted her fish and she beamed when I showed her the beautifully colored Colorado Cutthroat trout. She had a great fish for pictures much better than the small one she had caught earlier.

We caught several more cuts before we returned to the truck. Les walked up and we talked of the fishing, the scenery, and all the deer we had seen. Bow hunting season had started and gun season starts on the fifteenth so camper after camper had driven by.

Saying our goodbyes, we decided to drive down the gravel road to Daniel Junction and even though it was longer back home it was a lot easier on us and the truck. It had been a great day and now Renita needs to turn in her application for the Wyoming Cut Slam Award!  Well done Renita!

Clear skies