# Beautiful Spawners and a Big Brown



## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

I've kept a little hunch spot in my pocket for awhile now and have been hopeful to go and investigate it. Last week, my buddy and I actually tried to get to it, but had to turn around because of a super sloppy road.

After giving it a week to dry out, yesterday (Saturday) seemed like the perfect time to finally put my hunch to rest, one way or another. The road still had some sloppy spots due to remaining snow drifts, but I blazed through those and kept my hopes of giant tiger trout and colorful Colorado River cutts alive...It was then that I rolled up to a locked gate with the ever-present "No Trespassing" painted on its posts. It's private.

My main reason for even knowing about it is because of the DWR stocking reports. It's supposedly Stocked with small numbers of tigers or cutts for the past several years, in an area that receives little fishing pressure, so it really had my attention.

Having to really dig to find its location, I've had the tingles ever since I first mapped it out. My inquiry to the DWR about it prompted a response that they don't know anything about it and that it was probably a typo. Yeah right.

In that same system, I caught a 22" tiger trout from a rare public easement around a bridge three years ago, so my suspicion of serious potential was strong.

I find it rather interesting that farther down the same drainage, another privately owned reservoir is stocked with public resources, also tigers and CR cutts. So far, the only "official" answer I've gotten from the DWR about this has been that they're concerned about the cutthroat restoration program and they've offered to stock these fish so the land owners don't stock fertile rainbows.

I'm usually a big fan of our DWR, but allow me to express my criticism of these practices:

The DWR must approve any stocking of private waters already. How would a land owner get away with stocking a fertile, non-native species in a resto drainage anyway?

If this is the answer I've been fed, I find it hard to swallow.

Most of the water in that fork of the drainage is wrapped up in private land with very few public access areas. The DWR stocks this water that's mostly off limits to the public. I don't like it.

But enough ranting! This is a fishing trip report.

After encountering the gate, my heart was broken and I needed some therapy on the double. The nearest option was a rematch with the stretch of river my buddy and I got our butts handed to us on last week.

This option was acceptable, and the clarity had improved a bit in a week's time. The quickest cure for being bummed out is fishing a small stream. It wasn't long and I was smiling again.

The first spot I marched to was a shallow riffle behind a deep hole. A splash of red on the opposite bank revealed a pair of cutts, tail-shoveling in the gravel. After not even seeing a fish for the first hour last week, this was a good sign.

It required some patience and several casts to get a reaction, but the Gulp minnow worked its magic and I caught both of those fish.

The female:










The male:










Soooooooo colorful!










The next male had some skin issues. It looked as though sand was embedded in it and it was rough to the touch. Very strange.










I saw a few fish with sandpaper skin like that.

The stream was doing wonders for me! The fish were cooperating and I even caught a pretty good one, considering the size of the stream.



















So the stream treated me right and my thoughts moved to other options along the route home. One spot that I've enjoyed in the past was a small pond up a side canyon that feeds into a creek I like to fish.

The cutt pond, as I call it, has always provided medium sized cutthroat, with an occasional nicer one showing up too. A different strain of cutthroat (Bonneville sub species), I was excited to see if they were donning their spawnwear as well.

At the pond, my first casts were with a fly rod. A BH prince below an egg pattern provided no action for 10 minutes and I decided to see how a Gulp would do.

My first cast to the deepest spot of the pond was allowed to sink to the bottom. Watching the line until it went slack, I jigged the tip of the rod right into what felt like a snag. Then the snag moved.

At first, it was hard to process what was happening. This little pond was supposed to provide 13-16" cutthroat. After a few shakes and a strong, drag-peeling run, I decided to capture the catch on video.






Wow.

What a surprise to find such a beast in that pond! Another place that I found on the maps, another one of my hunches paid big dividends.

A new personal record, that Bonnie-binging bruiser was 22" long (previously stuck at 20"), and 4lbs, 11oz. What a catch!



















That was the only fish from the pond over the two hours I was there. It was as if the day was paying me back for the disappointment of not getting to my other hunch.

Gladly accepted!










Happy Fishing, Humans.


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## Bears Butt (Sep 12, 2007)

Nice!


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## brookieguy1 (Oct 14, 2008)

Awesome work, LOAH. Too bad on the other dream though. I had high hopes for it.


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## grousehunter (Sep 11, 2007)

Great fish!


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## Dunkem (May 8, 2012)

Sucks about the private property:!:Nice fish(as always)


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

LOAH -- I think some of your information is incorrect, and some is just muddled with mixed info. I don't know who at the DWR you've talked to -- have you tried the southern region aquatics guys?

I could give you some answers -- but I'm going to spill the beans on your secret location if I do...


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

I don't believe that naming private waters is blowing any secrets up. It may pinpoint the area I was in, but there's lots of water out there.

No, I didn't try the southern guys because it's not their area. My email was sent to the general inbox (DWRcomment) and likely passed around to whomever would answer it.

Here's a copy/paste of the response I received.

"I am the Aquatic Program Manager for the UDWR in Southeastern Utah. We manage Kyune Reservoir out of our office.

You are correct, Kyune Reservoir is on private property and is about a 15-20 acre impoundment. The private landowners annually apply for a COR to stock this water for sport fish purposes. The Reservoir lies in the headwaters of Kyune Creek which contains a core conservation population of Colorado River cutthroat trout (i.e., >95% genetic purity). We have very few places in SE Utah with pure native cutthroat, this watershed is one of them. Also nearby we have Tabbyune Creek, and the White River near Soldier Summit which hold native cutthroat trout. In exchange for the landowner's willingness to not stock non native sport fish, which could escape and possibly harm the genetics of the native cutthroat through interbreeding, we reached an arrangement.

When native cutthroat are available we will stock the reservoir. When native cutthroat are not available the landowner will purchase and stock sterile fish, commonly triploid rainbows or tiger trout. If those fish are not available the DWR will provide tiger trout. The DWR tries to avoid situations of stocking fish on private property, except when it is in the best interest of the resource and helps aid our native cutthroat trout program. "

I'm glad that the land owners are encouraged to purchase the approved fish. It still mentions that the tigers and cutts are "provided" when they're available though.

The river is also stocked and there's not much of one fork that can be accessed, where the other fork is quite restricted as well, but not as badly.

I really do understand the reasoning behind keeping the land owner from crossing species, but if they must first apply, then it's not going to happen anyway.

Keeping the native genetics as pure as possible is something I'm happy to get behind. I'd like to at least be able to catch them though.

It's a personal thing for me, where I believe that a lake stocked with public resources should have at least some public access made available by working further with the land owners (walk-in, even).

Kyune isn't the one I was looking for anyway. I've known that was off limits for a long time.

Here's the response I got about Averett Canyon Pond:

"We officially have a mystery on our hands...our aquatic Mgr is not familiar with Averett Canyon and our Northern Region Aquatics Mgr. hasn't heard of it either. We are starting to think it may have been a typo/mistake of some kind. I will keep you posted if we figure out this stocking location..."

Never heard anything else about it. I appreciate the response, at least.


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## Jackalope (Oct 30, 2007)

I actually just looked up Averett Canyon as I was going thru stocking reports. So it sounds like they didn't stock it?



LOAH said:


> I don't believe that naming private waters is blowing any secrets up. It may pinpoint the area I was in, but there's lots of water out there.
> 
> No, I didn't try the southern guys because it's not their area. My email was sent to the general inbox (DWRcomment) and likely passed around to whomever would answer it.
> 
> ...


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Hard to say. If a water is listed as receiving fish for years, I would be inclined to believe that's the case.

If a handful of people that oversee this activity are not sure whether or not a listed lake is stocked, I think there's a problem somewhere.


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## Jed (Feb 25, 2009)

Nice fish, young man.


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## Jed (Feb 25, 2009)

-O,-


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