2007 Westslope Cutthroat Hunt |
Day 1: Friday July 20th 2007: Each year I go camping with my relatives from Yakima on the east side of the Cascade
Mountains near my favorite Westslope Cutthroat stream. However this year
I ended up arriving at the campground well before my relatives, so I decided
to go and test out how the fishing was before they got there. The creek
has a barrier fall downstream of where I fish it, which has isolated the Westslope
Cutthroat population from later invading rainbow trout that are found in the
lower reaches. Above: A small set of falls on the creek. I started fishing the creek above a road crossing, but found that fishing was a little bit slower in this area than in previous years so I kept moving upstream. Once I got above a series of falls on the creek, the fishing drastically improved even though all of the trout remained small. Below: A couple of small Westslope Cutthroat. I figured since I had plenty of time to burn I would fish all of the way up to the where it split off into two forks (about a mile upstream) to sample some new water. This was a good call, because once I got above the third or fourth set of waterfalls, the number and size of the fish started to increase. Not far below the forks, I found a very nice run where I managed to catch my largest Westslope Cutthroat on the creek. Above: A good sized Westslope Cutthroat (Left); The spot that I caught the fish at (Right). Below: Looking downstream from the top of one of the falls. I worked my way back downstream catching as many or more cutthroat as I had on my way upstream, than I headed back to the campground where met up with my relatives and spent the rest of the day. Day 2: Saturday July 21st 2007: Two of my cousins have decided that they wanted to do a little fishing so we headed up to the stream. I figured since they would be doing most of the fishing, we would head back up to the section that I had fished on Friday so that I would know where the best holes were for them to fish. We cover about ¾ mile of stream and in which we caught a good number of cutthroat, but ended up with a broken rod. After fishing we headed down to the campground and called it a day. Above: My cousin Adam with a nice size Westslope Cutthroat that he caught (Left). Adam fishing for cutthroat (Right). Below: Me stocking some cutthroat (Left); An underwater shoot of a Westslope Cutthroat caught on a Royal PMX (Right). Day 3: Sunday July 22nd 2007: I spent the early part of the day at the campground, than drove home after a great weekend of fishing and camping. Back to the Trips Page |
