The Second Season: Fishing for Cutthroat Trout

I think of July and August as the second season of fishing out here. First season is June on the Firehole and Madison Rivers. Third season comes in September/October when the westside rivers cool again and the trout run-up the Madison from Hebgen Lake to spawn.

 

Cutthroat Trout, Yellowstone River

The second season is the time to fish for cutthroat trout in the Park’s Northeast corner.  This is the native trout in Yellowstone country, and its population is in great shape in the Lamar River drainage and the Yellowstone River below the falls.

Aside from the satisfaction of fishing for a native trout, the cutthroat is simply a beautiful fish to behold with olive/copper-colored flanks, rose-hued gillplate, and unique pattern of black spots. Its name comes from the bright orange slash beneath the gills.

In the world of trout fishing, the cutthroat trout is not known for its guile like the brown trout, nor for its fight like the rainbow. While I’ll concede its lack of fight, I find the cutthroat trout can be very selective and a rewarding challenge to fool.

 

Lamar River's cobble-lined banks

Aside from its beauty, one other characteristic that makes this trout so fun to fish for is its rise to a dry fly. In his book about fishing the Yellowstone River, Bob Jacklin describes it as a “deliberate rise.” Unlike the slash-and-grab of rainbow and brown trout, seeing a cutthroat come to the fly is like watching the action in slow motion.  If suspicious of your offering, it will literally put its nose to the fly, pause, then turn away unconvinced. When it does take the fly, it’s an unhurried pirouette back to the bottom.

 Faced with lots of fishing pressure, as is the case nearly everywhere inside Yellowstone Park, the cutthroat gets downright picky. It isn’t too long into the season before the cutthroat trout you encounter will be just as difficult to fool as a brown or rainbow. (As Chris Booth, my fishing buddy, jokes about fishing out here in the summer, trout can probably tell which fly shop you bought that hopper pattern from.)

Just as the cutthroat is a different kind of trout, so is the Lamar is a different kind of river. The valley it runs through is referred to as “American’s Serengeti” for its wildlife and panoramic vistas, but its namesake river is nothing much to look at. Characterized by extremes of flow, it looks close-up like little more than a gravel-lined ditch. Steeply gouged banks and sparse streamside vegetation shows the marks left by the heavy snowmelt that keeps it unfishable from spring snowmelt until early July. But, don’t let its looks deceive you, nor its meander’s long distances between good fishing water. This is a great trout stream. You can have Slough Creek. It’s a pleasant hike to an iconic waters, but it’s overfished and not nearly the room to roam like on the Lamar.

 

Lamar-Soda Butte Creek confluence

Cutthroat trout evolved to thrive in these sparse waters. Unlike rivers such as the Firehole or Madison, a heavy hatch of aquatic insects is rare on the Lamar. On this river, don’t be waiting for the hatch to begin. Yet, despite the apparent lack of aquatic fertility that makes for lots of trout food, there is plenty of insect life to support the Lamar’s thriving trout population. On average, the cutthroat I catch in the Lamar are larger than even the browns I catch in the Madison (fall run-up fish excepted).

Trout in relatively infertile waters like the Lamar learn to be opportunistic feeders. Selectivity here comes from the trout’s response to fishing pressure, I think, not the luxury of keying on lots of the same aquatic insect available as in a heavy hatch.

It is the cutthroat’s opportunistic feeding that the angler can capitalize on. Ask most anglers familiar with the Lamar what trout fly he/she would start with, and chances are the answer will be a grasshopper pattern. To be sure, hoppers become plentiful in Lamar valley with its expansive grass/sagebrush and strong afternoon winds to blow insects into the river. But, when most anglers are all fishing hopper patterns, cutthroat trout quickly learn to be selective.

 

Cutthroat trout, Lamar River

Instead, I have observed how freely Lamar trout take a mayfly. A mayfly on the Lamar, you ask? Yes, mayfly. I experienced this during my 2012 season, and in a future post, I’ll report on my experience already this season.

It is a two hour drive from my dorm getting to the Lamar, so only on weekends do I have time to get up there to fish. Add to that the real difficulty locking-in lodging or a campsite in that part of the Park, and already I know I won’t get to fish for cutthroat trout up often enough this season.