Cutt Slam Completion

Well, I can cross the Wyoming Cutt Slam off my “to do”
list. The official certificate of completion arrived in the mail
earlier this week documenting Jamie and my achievement. It
may be the only certificate I’ve ever gotten kind of excited
about.

For those that don’t know, the Wyoming Cutt Slam is a
challenge put forth by the WY Game and Fish in
which anglers are challenged to catch (and document) the four
Wyoming native cutthroat trout species. Each species resides
in its own specific region/drainage, making it a really fun fly
fishing adventure!

Jamie and I, along with Sage, began our Cutt Slam quest
back in 2012, journeying to the Tri- Basin divide area to camp
and fish. Our first stop was a small stream that had an
abundant population of Bonneville Cuttroat Trout. While I had
caught the Bonneville before, both in the Bear River in
Evanston, and also fishing this same water, I hadn’t
documented it, so it never happened. It didn’t take Jamie and I
long to both catch and photograph our first fish of the Slam.

Jamie showing off a beautiful gem of a trout; the
Bonneville

An architypal Wyoming high country trout stream.

On to find a Colorado…. This didn’t happen despite some
fairly serious fishing. You can read more about it here. Fast forward to early last summer
(2013). We had two free days together and a desire to get out
of town, camp and shake off the Colorado Cutthroat slump. Off
we drove again, me, my lady and a fourteen year old
Labrador. We fished some new water, exploring numerous dirt
forest roads and eventually finding our prize.

The elusive Colorado Cutthroat; once plentiful in the
Green River drainage

Fishing alongside some western history. Wonder if
the pioneers did any fishing along the way?

Sage and I are on a mission…

With time ticking, off we spend to a place where
Yellowstone Cutthroat are plentiful. Here we found some willing
participants, documented the catches and headed back to hot
Jackson.

A beautiful Yellowstone Cutt fell for a well presented
peacock soft-hackle fly.

The Snake River Finespotted cutthroat is what we catch
while fishing around home here in Jackson. Even though we
had tons of Fine Spotted pictures already, we decided to make
things official. We’d go out and hunt a few local fish. This
proved to be easy, with Jamie and I catching numerous fish
over the course of the past summer and fall.

Finally (with some prodding from the lady) I got around to
sending in our completed cuttslam forms this December. I
requested that Sage be listed on my certificate since she was
along for all the fish we caught, not to mention the thousands
of others during her life. Our certificates are a cool reminder of
the great times we had fishing our Wyoming waters for native
cutthroat trout. If you ever get the chance, take on the Cutt
Slam challenge too!