WNTC-Lahontan Cutthroat
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In 2022 I completed my first Utah Cutthroat Slam with the Yellowstone Cutthroat of the Raft River Mountains. This would be the first adventure where I would meet up with a stranger who I had never known prior to the meet up. He kindly offered to guide me for free for my completion of the slam. It was one of my roughest fishing experiences but I managed to land one tiny YCT after hours of torment and grind. Although this story isn't about that adventure, the gentleman and his brother who guided me naturally talked fly fishing for the entire drive to the mountains. One topic that was brought up was the Western Native Trout Challenge. This would be one of the first few times I heard of the WNTC and the particular story about an amazing bull trout creek in Idaho, which was one of the highlights of their success. This would also be the first time I heard of bull trout as a species in general.
While it's true that bull trout are among a small list of trout (char) native to the west, I perceive many anglers simply have never heard of them nor know of their environments; which are conveniently tucked away in the backcountry away from society. The bull trout like the brook trout are actually a char; dark body with light spots. They are from the same family as trout but are native to the west as brook trout are native to the east of the United States. They are also heavily protected in most of their native range with some states not allowing them to be caught intentionally which probably warrants some of the reasoning behind why people may feel they are more of a unicorn rather than a char lurking our beloved mountain trout waters.
The guy who guided me for my YCT talked about an Idaho creek system where they could be caught by the hundreds and particularly on dry flies. In the years I would complete multiple Utah Cutthroat Slams, and a Wyoming Cutt Slam, the dream to start the Western Native Trout Challenge became a reality and I reached out to the kind gentleman after years of silence to see if he could update me on the area. He responded with remarkable feedback and a pin to the area. Then it was a matter of when in the timeline I would pencil this fish in.
2025 started with my primary goal being the Expert Caster level of the WNTC as it's completed in 1/3's and it started to feel possible to time this trip. Although my first trip of the year in Montana fell through, catching my Lahontan cutthroat in Nevada really put a sense of achievement on my shoulders and I gained the inspiration I needed to embark this journey.
My good fishing friend Brendan Harden of Salt Lake Tenkara Guides and a brand manager for Wasatch Tenkara Rods would be joining me and we marked a date and set off on a mid July Friday. The drive was about six hours to the system we would target. Arriving around 3:00 in the afternoon, we prioritized a camp at a pristine and quiet "paid" camp sight. For only $5, we would get bear proof containers, a picnic table, a fire pit, and an outhouse within walking distance. There were only six camps here and we were the first ones to pick from the litter. After setting the tents and hammock up, we anxiously made our way to the creek.
As we drove up to the creek, we found a nice pooled run that was birthed from a culvert passing through a road. Armed with tenkara rods, we would catch the first two fish within a handful of casts. Both were non native rainbow trout and some of the prettiest we had ever seen. Brendan and I figured we would leap frog rather than have us spread out to cover ground so we could both ensure we got our targets as a priority. Brendan had roughly five rainbows before I would catch my third fish. It was clear we were going to catch a lot, and the fishing would be fast, but the reality that the rainbow trout ratio would be higher.
The fourth trout came to me when targeting a small pocket with hovering log. Brendan being at my side. As I casted my elk hair caddis, a small trout came up aggressively and aborted at the last second. A quick second cast would get a curious second trout that was unseen by me. "That rise looked like a char Payton" as Brendan passively encouraged me to take another quick cast. Upon the fly landing and with a little buck fever, I hookset a little hard and yanked a small 4" specimen around my shoulder and try to aim my net towards it. As the trout landed within the boundary of the net, both Brendan and I knew we didn't have a rainbow. With some prior knowledge of potential brook trout, we quietly observed for a few seconds and the excitement had hit me that I just completed my mission with my first bull trout. The little guy was tiny but it didn't matter. Relieved and overwhelmed with humble humility, I took a deep breath and announced how happy I was.
Brendan's first bull would come a bit later that afternoon. I slowed down my attempt to catch more fish in favor of him getting his and he quickly out fished me in total numbers with every single one of them being rainbow trout. In fact, I casually casted into some small side channels as the creek seemed to fork a lot due to the intense deadfall in the region. I was three bull trout into the day by the time Brendan caught his. I missed the entire hook experience but his quiet approach to the net as I walked up to him told me he had something. His trout came later than he wanted, but he made up for the wait with the largest one being perhaps 8-9 inches.
The rest of the evening became a leapfrog game and armed with a click counter, Brendan calculated us around 120 fish landed with only 15 or so of them being bull trout. It was dusk by this point and we hastened down the road to my car where we talked strategy for the next day. I was tipped off at the last second before this trip about how many fish we would catch but to try a second tributary for a higher density of bull trout. Ironically this tributary was a lower merge than the headwater which was contradicting my instinct to go higher into the system. Brendan suggested we do a few casts at the tributary and land one fish each to see what our luck would pull. With the car running, doors and windows open, we abandoned my car to walk 30 yards or so up stream. We each caught a fish. Both were bull trout. We knew exactly where to return the next day.
The next morning, Brendan and I parked at the second tributary and walked down stream. We were immediately greeted with bull trout on our first casts. Dry flies at 7:30 in the morning! As if the fish gods observed our metaphorical rain dance around the fire from the night before, we were locked into the bull trout as if the night before never existed. The ratio difference was substantial. We worked our way up the stream roughly a mile and were clicked to about 62 bull trout and perhaps less than 6 rainbow trout total. Multiple new best catches were observed with Brendan's being 13" and mine 12".
While some anglers thrive in the pursuit of trophy fish, my trophy is the challenge and the chase. To make a 924 mile round trip worth it, I only needed that first 4 inch bull trout and I would have been just happy with that. Instead though, we were marveled by a country that very few people will likely ever see in their lives. We asked ourselves as a group of campers were pulling out if they understood the gravity of the stream they were casually camping by. Bull trout may one of the more difficult fish to tackle in this challenge and we were catching them as if they were on a silver platter. No matter, we understood the importance of these native char. Our hands were wet, we cut flies when lodged too deep, we made sure each one swam away, and we constantly boasted about how pretty they were. Idaho is a true gem and this is a top three MUST revisit.
We left around noon to min/max our trip with additional native species. As if we didn't catch enough rainbow trout, we desired a native redband which would be caught in the headwaters of the Big Wood River on our way home. This was my first Idaho redband trout. Perhaps even more exhilarating was my first Westslope cutthroat trout right from the main body of the Salmon river swinging a soft hackle fly on a tenkara rod. Idaho was one for the books and I think by the end of a long WNTC journey, I will still be talking the highlights of this trip.
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