Peace and Quiet (wild cutthroat)

It’s been a little while since my last visit to the Wasatch Plateau and I took the opportunity this weekend to make the first human tracks at one of my favorite cutthroat streams.

Surprisingly, the snow has really melted away until getting up to the mid 8000’s. Once above that elevation, however, it’s still pretty deep and the top of Fairview Canyon has that familiar look of April.

My stream would require some footwork to get to, and the snow gave out under my weight. This left me punching postholes about 3 ½ feet deep. After a short distance, my heart was really pumping and I was grateful to find some snowmobile tracks that would support me. They got me close to where I needed to be.

Finally arriving at my creek, my tracks were the first, as I had hoped. Furthermore, it looks like I beat the runoff, as the water was crystal clear. That meant spooky fish in shallow holes.

With the deep snow all around, my best trail was the creek itself and it made being stealthy quite difficult. At first, the fish weren’t where they “should” have been and it took awhile to find any, but a beaver pond finally gave up a couple of pretty little cutthroat.

For a couple of my honey holes, it was necessary to do some belly crawling on the snow to get a good angle. Here’s a video I took while sneaking up to the first one I encountered.



That would be the biggest fish of the day and that hole didn’t provide another, even after waiting for 20 minutes or so.

Moving on, I was able to find a couple of really fishy areas that produced well with the Blue Fox until line failure left that piece of jewelry with a would-be fashion model.

Switching to the fly rod, the action wasn’t over and I caught quite a few more of the smaller variety on a black sculpin pattern. They looked more or less like this:

It was great to get out and see that marvelous land again and in a few weeks, it should be ready for those multi-lake marathon days that I enjoy so much out there. The only other people I encountered all day were zipping around on their sleds and likely never knew I was around.

There was also a DNR conservation officer who pulled in to check me before I embarked. He thought I was nuts when I told him what I was up to. It wasn’t that bad though, just a little tiring to get back, as the snow wouldn’t support me as well after being weakened by the warmth of the day.

What a great area and a peaceful place to gather one’s thoughts on a sunny Saturday.

On the way home, I enjoyed some of the trademark sights, characteristic of my trips to the Manti.

Happy Fishing, Humans.