Devan S.

Historically I have used a 3wt. More dipping and less casting....plus I'm rarely having to cast far. I don't know for my historical usage it matters a whole lot. I had the outbound short selected and then dropped it. If I just go to Rio, SA, ect. and select lets say my givens: Freshwater, WF8F you get 5 or 6 or more options for every selection. I'm second guessing myself. I guess functionally none of this matters......my form is crap.

How do you go about fly line selection? For example: 8wt rod, want a floating line, want something for big streamers for trout if I so choose, maybe a trip to pyramid lake, but most of all good casting ability in early spring chasing top water striper. Fairly confident in WF8F but how do you pick down below that without just banging out $75 over and over and over until you find something?

I have tinkered with the big umbrella rigs and caught some fish. Mostly 4-8lb fish. My boat trolls at 2.8-3.0 mph so that's the speed I pull them at. Big gear, big rod holders, and make sure its all in good working condition. I use heavy metered braid to get my approximate depth of the rig and try to keep it just above anything I see on graph. Common sense but make sure you are moving as you drop them over the side otherwise they go to the bottom, tangle up, and get hung. Most of my fish were caught in locations where top water was present a few hours before.

Overtime: We had about 1.5 or 2 days extra to fish. I had scoped out some Bull Trout locations in Idaho for bonus time but overall we had settled on Yellowstone/Grand Teton and after Grand Teton we were 100% headed that way. In the car we started counting up what we had and making sure we met the second level of the Western Native Challenge. I am down to Alaska and Kern River drainage/Golden Trout in California(I'm going to still get a real Eagle Lake Fish at some point). I have a Pyramid/Eagle lake trip in November scheduled already. @Prifish did not catch a Lahontan at Pyramid lake so he still needed Nevada and a LCT to get him to the second level of the Western Native Challenge. On the fly we formulated a plan for Gance Creek, NV and stream resident Lahontan/Humboldt Cutthroat. Gance Creek comes up often for Nevada LCT but its never really discussed well on how or where so we mostly flew blind. There is lots of discussion about how difficult it fishes and how people miss out on fish and the brush/thorns are bad. We showed up right at dusk and checked things out. Definitely found some nice beaver pond pools that each had multiple fish. They were spooky and took some stealth but they ate.

Yellowstone National Park The only fish we were missing on this stop was Yellowstone Cutts. We setup home base in Cooke City, Mt but developed some side quest. Several river closures and hoot owl restrictions on the NE corner so we needed things to do in the afternoon. @Prifish caught a nice fish on the Lamar. My first fish got loose before a good picture on Soda Butte Creek. So I had to catch another to get a picture. Not chancing it this time. We half heartedly fish Trout Lake. Saw some good fish cruising but no interest in our offerings. Our side quests led us to a small Creek for Westslopes. Pretty fish in small brushy pocket water we like. Too bad it was a mosquito pit. Our final side quest was chasing Goldens at Daphnia Lake just off the Beartooth HWY. Nice little lake and fish were rising but the wind was howling. We did get bites but did not connect on any fish. Wyoming Cuttslam done!

Montana-Westslope As previous discussed, Montana has rules about "fishing contest" therefore they only count stocked locations for the Western Native Trout Challenge. I had picked out Elk lake for 3 reasons. 1. You could drive right too it. 2. Location compared to Yellowstone NP 3. Large Westslopes, Grayling, and Lake Trout. We showed up mid-day. It was hot, the lake is deep, the easy spots to fish were shallow and weed choked. The deep spots had nearly vertical brush lined sides. We saw zero fish cruising and zero surface activity. The lake is 280 acres much to large for us to fish the whole thing. We gave it a try and raced back to phone service to make a new plan. What ensued over the next 24hrs was nothing more than scrambling. We headed north towards Butte, Mt. We fished Homestake lake right off the interstate and the water was very dark stained. Zero confidence and sketchy people milling about. We bailed. Maney Lake, it was stocked in the last month. People fishing/swimming having a good time. 1 bite but a local said normally he tears them up on a white rooster tail and confirmed stocking recently. Others caught fish. We stayed the night in Butte. Back at the lake first thing. I managed a nice Brook trout. The best of the trip. My only claim to fame. @Prifish ends up seeing a fish surfacing near a log. Ties an elk hair caddis on a spinning rod and dips out a westslope. Ticked off and scrambling I start to consider finding stream fish. We head toward Bozeman. Stop at White Hall, Mt and fish the community pond. Stocked last month immediately I catch a fish. It might be the ugliest Westslope ever to exist....no way I am submitting this fish. Onto Bozeman and just south Big Bear Lake.....Did not drive all the way to lake. Hiked last mile due to road. Glad we did as it made us stay longer than we would have since we were scrambling. Success for @Prifish on the fly. Lots of short strikes on jigs in same area. Finally one hammers it on a steady retrieve. @Prifish wanted to try for a better fish on jig. Took a few casts and said last cast. I said take 5 more. If no bites we can leave. Last cast and he catches this. Pretty darn good upgrade. We hiked back down just as it started to rain. Montana done! Onto Yellowstone to finish up the Wyoming Cuttslam! Definitely on pace to finish early.

Wyoming Snake River-Grand Teton NP We had both really looked forward to this location. Scenery and rumor had it Lakers could be caught in the river and potential for big Cutthroat. It also gave us a chance to sling jigs. I quickly caught 2 decent Cutthroat before @Prifish could get rigged up. He showed up and put on a clinic. I don't recall the final tally but know he caught nice browns, lakers, and Cutthroat. I probably had more cutthroat but he caught more fish overall than I did by a mile. He caught a really nice cutthroat but I do not have the picture so he can share if he wants. Oh did I mention scenery? From here on out I had one concern. The funny rules of Montana and could we catch Westslope in a pond. Since it concerned us, we bailed early on Grand Tetons with intent to come back later if we got done in time. We probably only fished about an hour in total.

Wyoming Colorado Cutthroat: Heading on up further into Wyoming. A neat little place-Tri-Basin divide. The road in from the west runs for miles along Smiths Fork which contains Bonneville/Bear River Cutts. Flowing North off the divide is Greys river which has Snake River Cutts. Flow southeast is La Barge Creek which has Colorado Cutts. We drove along side the Smiths Fork for miles and it looks incredibly fishy and we saw very few if any people. Never mind seeing another fisherman. We did not travel on down the road to the Greys River but my assumption would match Smiths Fork and La Barge. Lots of places to fish all within a couple miles down desolate dirt roads. Medium size stream with enough challenges and hiding spots to spend a whole week exploring. We moved on from here and fish the Gros Ventre briefly but did not catch anything. Also stayed the night on the side of the road in a mosquito pit.

Wyoming Bonneville Cutthroat Heading North we passed right along Salt Creek. We both enjoyed and caught multiple fish. I am fairly certain @Prifish wore a dozen out in one hole. Maybe even some whitefish on top. Also this is where things really get dicing with our picture taking. Streams and fish begin to all look the same. Date and time stamps tend to get mixed up when downloading/saving/sharing from Google photos. We both enjoyed this creek. Easy to fish and full of fish and as far as we could tell, the only ones around. 10/10 would return.

Utah Bonneville Cutthroat- Up early and had to wait for the gate to the park to be opened. I had a really nice fish swipe on Cutler Creek in a plunge pool below a culvert that I just couldn't get to commit. Up over the ridge and we were off to check the last fish off. I have to get my digs in here. @Prifish generally caught fish before me on every stop and in every case but 2 he caught much better fish(bigger) than me. I am a bull in a china shop...he is much more deliberate in picking spots and approaching the river. This is his fish. Utah Slam Complete + Tigers and Whitefish. Off to Wyoming.

Utah Bear River Cutthroat- @Prifish already had his Bear River fish from the Logan River but I still needed one. On the way back towards the Upper Bear River we saw a turn off for the East Fork Bear River. I pulled 2 fish from the first spot we fished back to back. We fished around a bit more but only found Brook Trout. Upstream from this point was multiple off road vehicle crossings of this river. The road in/out was filled with open range sheep. At this point, we both were 3/4 and missing the Bonneville Cutthroat trout. We had zero confidence in the upper Provo so instead of heading onto WY we head back toward Salt Lake City to formulate a new plan. We were looking for something East of SLC but a bit more north knowing that we would head to WY next. Utah says the upper reaches of the Ogden river are managed for Bonneville's. @BilletHead said the North Fork worked for him and there was camping nearby so off we headed. No need for a roadside sleep in the car.

Awesome! Rio's are some pretty fish.

@BilletHead no worries I got the tiger. I hear they are getting really big at the White...maybe that should be my new goal. I cannot express how busy it was....even Washington lake overflow parking was full and people parking along the road in/out. Just chaos. We got to Wall lake at maybe 7am and there was people camping there...already swimming burrrr. A pretty place no doubt but busy busy.

Utah Colorado Cutthroat- East we headed. We met several groups of campers packing up heading back west and the farther we went, the less off road vehicle traffic we met. We still met a bunch of vehicles but nothing compared to the pavement of the Mirror Lakes area. We finally settled out at the East Fork of the Blacks Fork Campground. 3 cars in the lot and some horses. Did not appear to be fisherman around. Water looked good and fishy and easy access. We split up and got to work. Brook trout, whitefish, and our target Colorado Cutthroat. Splitting up makes fish+human pictures harder. See exhibit A But I did manage net pictures. Probably better for the fish anyways. We did not have to wade far and this was probably our favorite stream in Utah.

Mirror Lakes/Upper Provo- The goal here was Bonneville Cutts in the river and Tiger Trout in the lakes. We decided on a early hike to lake and then fish the river after lunch. Hindsight being 20/20 I would have just skipped all this chaos and proceeded but we tried to fight through. People everywhere, traffic, and poor signage for such high use areas. We got turned around and started at Washington lake. Took off hiking looking for Star lake. Could have bushwacked but didn't feel like it after a couple hours of sleep. Ended up on easy trail to Wall Lake. no service so we did not know what had been stocked or what to expect. Ended up with 1 brookie, I think. No picture. We fished the Upper Provo in a half a dozen spots. Caught several brookies and 1 tiger. No Bonnies. By this point, we were beginning to get frustrated with the numbers of people and lack of fish besides Brook trout. It was mid-afternoon and we started to wonder about where we might find a spot for some sleep. We made a call the head to the upper Bear River closer to the WY line. Found good water, jumped in waded to the first bend and ran into 3 guys. Disgusted we packed back up and headed East looking for more remote areas. Have I mentioned all the SxS, 4 wheelers, and dirt bikes in the area? Everywhere ripping down the dirt roads.

As we came back east from the Raft River Mountains we made a quick pit stop along the Logan River. Hwy 89 runs along the river for miles and while technically we wanted to go way up we just did not have time. It was light in the flat land but the sun was low on the horizon and getting dark fast in the mountains. We made a quick stop just above Dam 3 and fished briefly for our Bear River Cutt. @Prifish was successful really quickly and I zeroed. We made our way back to town for supplies and to make a plan on for sleep. Our original plan had us driving up along the Mirror Lakes area but we had the option to sleep at the Logan River but there was no camping available in the lower parts. We never ventured very far along Hwy 89. Unfortunately poor planning on our part. Pioneer day was last week in Utah so every campsite we had marked down as a potential sleep site was full. We even tried to find hotels but again zero availability. We basically ended up sleeping in the car on the shoulder of the road along the mirror lakes area. Finally arriving around 2am the next morning.

Well we got back home today. Started out with a change of plans. We landed in SLC and headed directly for the northern side of the Raft River mountains. We decided with short time to try and check off the "hardest creek" first. @BilletHead instead of stopping right at the bridge over onemile, we went up farther and packed over the ridge directly down into Sawmill Canyon(flatlanders at elevation right away). We instantly started spooking fish. Tight quarters but I like this style of fishing. If you can handle the frustration of weaving a rod through the brush without spooking fish. You dip anything around these fish and they hit it like they are starving. We had a little bit of daylight left so off we raced to another stream before dark. We can worry about places to sleep and rations later.

Definitely fished the Deschutes in Washington. Your description of it is spot on....small, brushy river/creek. Fish were likely small resident fish vs. true sea run. Not a destination and as you said many much better places to fish.

I think for the southern gulf coast states...I may have to make a December road trip and just try to get LA, MS, AL, FL all in one swoop.

I have pseudo set a goal of trout in every state. I say pseudo because I have not done research to confirm trout are available is every state. Here I will keep track of states and locations. Overall my goal is the get a native/self supporting as possible although that may not be possible. In cases where Trout is not possible, I will likely defer to state specific native species. Alabama Alaska Arizona-Rainbow-Wildcat crossing(Black River), Brown-Little Colorado upstream of Greer, Gila-Dude Creek, Apache-West Fork of Black River(Thompson Meadows), Brook-Hall Creek, Artic Gralying-Acker Lake, Apache-Acker Lake, Cutthroat-Luna Lake, Rainbow Luna Lake, Arkansas-Rainbow/Browns-Beaver Dam Tailwater, NF tailwater, BS Tailwater+Brook California-Eagle Lake Rainbow-Crater Lake, Goose Lake Redband-Lassen Creek, McCloud Redband-McCloud above Falls. Colorado-Greenback Cutt-Herman Gulch, Rainbow/Brown-Big Thompson, Colorado Cutthroat-Mohawk Lakes Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho-Redband-Mores Creek above Idaho City Illinois-Rainbow. Mt. Vernon Veterans Memorial City Pond Indiana Iowa Kansas-MLWA Trout pit #30 Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri-Rainbow/Brown-Taneycomo, Roaring River- All rivers of Blue Ribbon trout slam Montana-Brook and Westslope-Big Bear Lake, Maney Lake Nebraska-Brown- Middle Fork Soldier Creek, Brook-Wood Reserve Trout Pond, Cutthroat-Wood Reserve Pond, Rainbow-Grabel Ponds Nevada-Lahontan Cutthroat-Pyramid Lake, Gance Creek New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico- Brook-Cabresto Lake, Gila-Mineral Creek, Rio Cutthroat-San Cristobal Creek, Brown/Rainbow-San Juan New York North Carolina North Dakota- Camels Hump Lake- Stocked Rainbow Trout Ohio Oklahoma Oregon-Bull Trout-Metolius/Wenaha, Redband-Crooked River Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota- Spearfish creek, Castle Creek-Browns, Rainbows, Brook trout Tennessee Texas-Rainbow- Guadalupe River Utah-Entire Cuttslam+Tiger Trout+Brook trout, North Fork Ogden, Upper Bear River, East Fork Blacks Fork, Upper Provo Vermont Virginia Washington-Coastal Cutthroat-Deschutes River West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming-Entire Cuttslam + Lake Trout, La Barge Creek, Salt Creek, Snake River, Soda Butte Creek, Lamar River

I've fished Bob Kidd a couple times and I think it has potential and we figuratively filled a cooler of big gills but nothing close to 1lb. A bunch of .6 to .7lb fish and a couple .7 lb Redears.

I've seen some indication of swepco having some big redear and some bigger catfish. I've considered a trip but mostly held off due to overall pressure/parking. At the end of the day, I'm mostly a weekend warrior. The problem with redear is that they are bigger but the requirement is 1.5lbs. For the bluegill specifically I've tried to find smaller bodies of water that are devoid of the larger predator fish(catfish, bigger bass). I think a place where there is potentially an abundance of small bass would keep overall numbers low and allow the bigger fish to escape predation. I've got a spot I have fished 10-12 times and caught some good fish but nothing bigger than .7lbs. It honestly maybe that rock bass becomes the easier option. The Ark state record longear was caught in table rock so who knows....

I'm really down to 4 categories: + I want a 25lb Striper just for the rush. I've caught a couple in the upper teens and set a goal so here we go. Perch: Just almost 99% positive this will be an Arkansas TRL walleye. I've been close a couple time but haven't gotten there yet. There is an off hand chance at a Sauger at Ozark L&D but I've travelled there 4 times and haven't caught anything yet but would like one for species. Trout: Based on time, my most "fished for fish" although the overlap between Trout and Walleye below Beaver is enough that "any given time". Honestly I expected based on location and volume of fishing time one of these would already be done. I'm going to start expanding my trips toward BS/Norfork tailwaters to up my odds at trout. The ability to fish from the bank makes this attractive before or after work for shorter commitment trips. Catfish: I've tried up around Holiday Island from the bank a time or 2 with nothing. Beaver certainly has flats, channels, and blues big enough but rod and reel really limits things. If it were jugs and/or set lines I think I could pull this off really easily. We will see. Right now its really not a priority. I think there are more target rich locations in Arkansas for all 4 species than the NW corner. Bream: I really think in NWA this is the hardest category. Possible, yes. Likely, no. I cannot tell you how many bluegill, green sunfish, longears I have weighed. I've double, triple, quadruple checked my scales are accurate at the sub 1 lb marks. I've really never been close. I know google has information on lots of lakes that say 1 lb Bluegill but I just don't know that I can trust it. Until you really start putting numbers of Bream on a scale for weight....you don't really realize how big a 1 lber is.

Crappie 2.5lbs both blacks and white. I knew going in this would be tough. I enjoy crappie but don't have live scope and all my life probably have seen 1 crappie in my life in the realm of 2.5lbs. I have spent a couple years and probably 5-6 trips down south to Millwood lake chasing big pre spawn-Crappie. Taking wife, friends, ect down and doing live scope trips with a guide to fill a cooler. Millwood/Arkansas have generous limits and after the first time fishing with Jared I knew I'd be back. Its a good way to have a good time and bring back enough fish for a fry and then some. There is a ton of Crappie tournament results for Arkansas online and based on the results and guides is how I ended up at Millwood. I really think it has a reasonable shot a 3lb Crappie in Arkansas in early spring. Over the 5-6 trips I have caught maybe 25 fish between 2-2.5lbs. Again 16 or 17" fish with golf balls in their bellies. Not true 2.5lbers but pre-spawn fat fish that hit the mark with eggs. This year I finally hit 2.5 after having several in the 2.4 range. This one I question multiple times. After being so close several times I weighed 3 times. 2.51, 2.52, 2.49. Close enough and plus I'll be back.

All the remainder of '21 and into 2022 I struggled. Focusing on fishing reasonably locally at the right times. Walleye spring, striper winter/spring, trout fall/winter, Bluegill spring summer. Ect. I was overwhelmed....multiple species and spread thin. As I recall I caught walleye and trout in excess of 8lbs in Kings river and below Beaver respectively but that was as close as I had been. I had mostly kept fishing the right locations but cared less about the goal. Someone at work told me they were working over the big whites up below Beaver Dam. Wouldn't give me a spot but said...its specific....start at houseman and fish down until you find them. Said they estimated their big fish were 3.5 to 4lbs and 18 to 20" and lots of them. Not just a 1 or 2 deal. Good enough for me to check out. I fished down...until I had chasers on a A-rig. Then began working them with an 1/8oz zig jig. The flood gates were open albeit just barely and the fish were stacked up on an inside bend eddy. I was the only boat there. Most others were chasing late season walleye stragglers in May. Whites only need to be 3.5lbs. I don't like to eat them so was CnR only. I don't recall the numbers.....and you wouldn't believe me if I did say them but I wore out multiple white zig jigs. No marabou; coming untied. I weighed a bunch of 3+lb, 18" whites that just would not hit the 3.5lb mark. 3.2, 3.3, 3.4....over and over...A lot of fun. Most looked like they were packing golf balls in their stomachs. Unfortunately I was solo. I finally hit a 3.52lb fish. Frankly it was fun catching but I'm not happy and still chasing the 25lb striper.