If I were to ask you what the least populated state in America was what would come to mind? Maybe my home state of WV? Or one of the midwestern states where it seems like you can drive for hours without seeing anything more than a corn field or a wind mill? But no, the answer is Wyoming. A state that is larger than the entirety of the United Kingdom but has double the number of cows as it does people. A state with only two escalators, yet produces 40% of the nation’s coal. But there’s also 4 cutthroat trout species in Wyoming that are part of the cutthroat slam and My goal is to catch all 4. And having already caught the Yellowstone Cutthroat on the previous day, I was moving on to the snake river cutthroat. Welcome back to another video.
So here’s the deal, and I’ll just be honest with you because this happens from time to time when I make these long trips. But most of the creeks I wanted to fish were closed this time of year to allow the cutthroat to spawn, at least that’s why I assume they were closed. They should have been done spawning by now, BUT I think a lot of times it’s shut down out of an abundance of caution. And the creeks that were open I can only assume weren’t the highest quality places to catch cutthroat, because if they had been theyd probably have been shut down as well. This was one of those instances where I should have known this prior to coming to Wyoming, but sometimes there are so many intricate regs, especially for native trout, that you just can’t see them all. So basically what that meant is that I was stuck fishing the main river and a few lower quality tribs. Which dramatically dropped my expectations for the day once I realized that. Of course, I don’t give up easily.
I’m not going to pretend like I was catching a ton of fish, but I wasn’t doing horribly either. At least I could say I knocked the snake river cutthroat off the list and the water was beautiful. After catching one last fish I noticed that some guys had gotten in the river to fish up above me which meant I couldn’t go up any further and it was time for me to get out of the river. It might be the least populated state in America but it sure as heck doesn’t have the least amount of fisherman! Anyways I decided to try another creek or just to switch it up a bit.
But after failing to catch a fish and getting rained on I decided it would be best to call it a day. I hadn’t totally failed but to call this day a success would be stretching the truth. At least I got to spend the day fishing in some incredible water in probably the prettiest country you could imagine.
The next day I got up with the plan to chase some snake river cutthroat again, but after talking to a few fly shops and fishing one other creek, I decided it was best to just chase a new species, the Bonneville cutthroat.
Unfoturnatley, like all of my snake river endeavors had gone so far, this one didn’t pan out very well. So I felt it was best to just try something totally new and go for the Bonneville Cutthroat, and I’m glad I did.
As far as fishing the least populated state in America goes, I’d say it’s pretty sweet. But I think of the less than 600,000 people in Wyoming, most seem to be into the outdoors. And the people who visit the state almost certainly are, meaning there is no shortage of fisherman. So I you think you’re going to Wyoming to get away from outdoorsman you’re sorely mistaken. But the area also plenty of fish, and the Bonneville cutthroat impressed me. It seemed like if you could find the right hole in that creek you’d have a chance at a good fish, but at times you’d struggle. I figured out eventually that a few stretches of that creek had water that was relatively warm for cutthroat trout, and in turn I saw very few fish there and left. It’s worth noting that most of the creek had really cold water and was spring fed, but it seemed specifically like below beaver dams there were some stretches where water had to have been in the mid to upper 60’s. Which isn’t lethal, but surely put the fish down. Either way I was able to find good water and catch some good fish. As far as the snake river cutthroat goes I didn’t do too well, but honestly from what I can read, the snake river cutthroat and Yellowstone cutthroat are the same species but with different morphology. In other words there’s no real genetic difference between the two fish, they just look different. Having said that Wyoming still has both on the list of species for their cutthroat slam and I was happy to oblige and catch both. As I mentioned in the outro, the next fish to catch was the Colorado River cutthroat, was took me to some of the weirdest habitat I’ve ever seen trout in. I’ll catch you on the next video.
Thanks for watching!
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