Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat Trout

Introduction: The Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat is native to the Snake River drainage between Jackson Lake and the Palisades Reservoir in Wyoming. Above and below this area, the predominent fish is the Yellowstone Cutthroat, however what is odd is that before the construction of the dam on Jackson Lake, there were no barriers to isolate the two types of cutthroat from each other. It is said that the Snake River Fine Spotted cutthroat is the hardest fighting cutthroat, but if you have ever had a chance to fish for Coastal Cutthroat in the salt water, you would think otherwise. Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat can attain fairly large sizes, with an average maximum size of around 20 inchs and 3 pounds, but the can reach 9 or 10 pounds under the right conditions. Out of all of the subspecies of cutthroat, the fine spotted is prehaps doing better than any of the others. Today it is still the dominate trout through out its entire native range, which may be partially due to the fact that fine spotted cutthroat do not readily hybridize with rainbow trout. Also studies have shown that fine spotted cutthroat have a greater resistance to whirling disease, that any other cutthroat or rainbow trout.

Description: The trait that makes Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat so unique is their spots which are smaller than those of any other type of trout in Western North America. Most of their other traits tend to be similar to Yellowstone Cutthroat, with both have brownish yellow to greenish brozne coloration. The lower fins on fine spotted cutthroat also vary from yellowstone cutthroat and tend to be more a deeper red or orange color.

Below: A map of the native range of the Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat.