Devan S.

Overall I enjoy any species but walleye, big gills, whites, and crappie has been what I have chased in Mo. as a kid. Although I grew up in Golden I had never fished Beaver lake but I know Striper was a likely an easier target for "temperate bass". I've caught a bunch of big whites as a kid but never in the Arkansas portion of TRL so I set out focus on Striper on Beaver as my check mark. In the process of throwing early spring top water, for Striper near Indian Creek I have caught 3 small mouth in rough master angler size. These are all May time period big top water fish caught on the obvious main lake points in the dam area chasing swirling striper. To be fair this was 100% accidental all 3 times and in all 3 cases the fish were essentially 3.5lbs. I worried about this group early on. I don't like fishing for bass, river bass are fun but a 10" is as good as a 3.5 lber for me. I will say...hindsight tells me this would be hard if I didn't luck into it like I did and that smallmouth in the right location is probably much easier than the other 2 options. Original thread here:

As a challenge I have focused on this specifically for several years and thought I would break down how things have gone, research into locations and how things should go(at least according to my plan). To date I have caught fish qualifying for 4 Arkansas master angler awards which also qualifies me for the coin. I also have 2 additional fish that I did not submit that would duplicate other fish. The first category I targeted and was successful was miscellaneous. I had planned for gar or paddlefish but knew there was a good run of spoonies below Beaver dam. FWIW I live about 30 minutes from Beaver dam so it was an easier target. After a couple failures....someone showed me the ways and I quickly connected. I don't fish this category at all. I think Bowfin would be fun to chase but at the time I wasn't nearly as interested in species as I am now. The original catch thread is here:

Tons of people I know talk about going over to OK to catch those Mississippi whites.....

@BilletHead sounds like we are on similar paths. Sawmill canyon is on our list. Of course there is others options but not a lot so that is target #1. Mirror lake scenic byway is the route I had selected out of SLC and eastward along the upper provo. Lots of lakes and best I can tell several stocked with tigers. I had not stumbled upon Star Lake. Will add it to the list. My concern with the Washington/Trail lakes campground area is use and harvest of tigers. I had some numbered bear lake watershed lakes just down the road along the mirror lake scenic byway. They had been stocked in the last year or 2 and show to be bushwhack hikes at best.

As these things do, we gain insight and species goals begin to develop beyond the existing targets. Here is a some additional lifers we would like to luck into: Tiger trout-Utah has stocked lakes all over so its really about finding a good option along the way. Lake trout-Obviously several options in GTNP and YNP. I don't know if it will happen but we are bringing jigs and spinning rods so the ability to fish deeper will be available. Whitefish-Seems that they are everywhere. Maybe we can luck into some. Goldens-I've been scoping some locations in WY. Its likely going to be a time commitment to hike to something so we will see.

At this point, I will take what I can get for recommendations. Believe it or not....this trip is harder to plan. Previous trips have had many limitations on when/what spots could be used for various slams. Outside MT this is wide open and it seems as if there is plenty of acceptable options outside the already discussed limitations. Here is my first swag at leg 1. I figure it would take us to maybe early mid-day 2 to cover this water and probably get us 3/4 of the way to UT Cuttslam the chief goal here is to get out east for the Colorado CT but check others along the way. Target 1 would be the Upper Provo river for Bonneville CT. Seems several miles of stream parallel to the road. Lots of campgrounds. There is also a bunch of lakes in the area...if we wanted to explore something still waterish. Target 2 would be Bear River for Bear River CT. This is right where the path juts off due east. Again great access area and lots of camping. Mostly likely the "STOP" for night 1. May or may not fish this area on day 1. Target 3 would be the East fork of the Blacks fork for Colorado CT. The jut east is all dirt/gravel road so no idea what we will get into but again lots of options for camping/lakes, ect. From here we have 2 roughly equidistant choices - North into WY and onto the next slams(we could theoretically pick up Colorado CT in WY on the blacks fork vs. la barge creek) A bit north(maybe have a shot at blacks fork WY and then west to UT for Yellowstone CT.

In MT it looks like Elk lake has nice west slopes, grayling, lake trout....no idea how easy or not but its fairly close to where we are going to be. In WY Tri-basin is a good base spot. Like you said Salt River/Creek are both "on our way". The map shows a bunch of blue lines. I have no doubt we can simply catch small natives in a lot of spots. We are obviously going to be right in the midst of Yellowstone/Tetons so there's always options there too. The nice things is that this trip doesn't have multiple 5-8hr drives to get from spot to spot like previous trips. Lots of ability to go a couple hours and fish. Lots of people say they do the Cutt slams in 1-2 days so we feel like we have more time to explore and less windshield time. We just don't want to miss out on something cool if we can keep from it. Maybe even catch some other species....whitefish.

Here is a rough outline: Day 1-land in SLC mid-day. Per the UT cutt-slam map....we should be able to find Bonneville close by-No specific stream picked yet. Would be nice to get Colorado Cutts too but nothing specific picked out yet either. Day 2-3 maybe shuffled around a bit to maximize daylight fishing but we have to make a trek out to west Utah to get Yellowstone Cutts(limited options) and then circle back to probably get bear river cutts going North out of UT toward WY. WY - We are probably headed to Tri-basin divide to fish la barge creek for our Colorado Cutt...to get there we will go over multiple bear river cutt spots. Snake River and Yellowstone have pretty prolific areas to catch. Nothing at this point set in stone. UT/WY is about the state specific slams and dragging along species for the Western Native. MT is a bit different. They don't recognize fishing challenges so for the Western Native we limited to very specific spots(stocked locations). Right now we have targets Elk Lake which is North of Red Rock lake. I would say generally western part of WY, Northern UT, and very limited MT. Again we haven't really selected a specific stream/spot in more than about 2 or 3 spots.

Starting to plan out my July trip. Planning on Utah/Wyoming/just a touch of Montana. Is there any place/stream/location that is a must hit or things we absolutely shouldn't miss? Obviously going to do the Utah/Wyoming cutt-slams and jumping across into Montana to fish one or 2 spots. We should have plenty of time vs. previous trips.

I passed up chasing a shad bite below the dam and found some of those top water stripers. Nothing big but ended up catching 7 total. Pretty good day. Had one good follow on the fly rod too.

I'm starting to plan my next moves for states to check off and ND/SD. One spot that consistently comes up for trout is Garrison Dam tailrace but there is not a lot of details. Is this a reasonable spot for Trout? ND says they stock but all the details show catfish, walleye not trout. Is this even a place one could bank fish and stand a chance? I am certain its water level dependent. Just trying to get some general information.

Fire Neds.....Pautzke said so. Copy and paste from their website: The Pioneers of Trout Fishing have designed a new way to fish for trout. Introducing Fire Neds, a remastering of the popular bass fishing technique with a new trout twist. Fire Neds are designed to make catching trout easier than ever with micro finesse techniques that will make even the most finnicky bite.

I've been slinking around the dam area a lot lately with the rivers not producing. I'm having a ball with the smallmouth lately on jerkbaits and keitechs and never having to pull the boat along for the trip. I need to check out the back on Indian though and see if I can find some cats.

As I recall CA, OR, WA was along the $20/day and Pyramid Lake in NV was like $25/day.

Planning on rounding out UT, WY, MT this year, will likely bag OK too. Then if time allows may take a quick run to the driftless and try to get 3-4. This is trout only. Adding other fish and it goes up.

I sorta am, I would like to stick to trout but there is some out there that become tricky so I may get creative when it gets down to the final innings.

Count me in on the resisting the force. This is the exact kind of setup I want though.

I'm going to push the UT/WY slams to 2024/ Traded the 4 states for the Western Native for 5 states. Only managed to catch 1 Arkansas Master Angler (3.54lb White bass). Had an 8+ Walleye, 2.36lb Crappie with a couple more between 2 and 2.36lb.

2024: 1. Utah and Wyoming Cutt-slams, complete Montana for WNTC 2. 1 Arkansas master angler fish. I really want this to be Walleye (9lbs) but we will see. 3. 10lb Pyramid lake Cutty.

After Crater lake, we raced back to fish Pyramid before dark. Again nothing. We had 6 hours this morning to fish again. @Prifish had one hookup but the lead to braid knot I tied came loose so he lost his one good shot at Pyramid lake. Overall we had 3 bites at Eagle Lake and landed 1. 3 bites at Pyramid and landed 2. We fished the better part of 25-27 hours. We think the great weather and bluebird skies hurt us. It was a grind and we're both pretty bummed. I've technically finished Nevada and Northern California but not overly excited about the picture of my Pyramid lake fish or my crater lake fish. @Prifish still needs a Lahontan Cut and a Nevada fish.

Unfortunately I don't feel great about checking the boxes the way we did. I feel like I got by Eagle Lake with a technicality and feel like Pyramid lake did not live up. We're really thinking stream Lahontans are going to be an itch to scratch.

Day 3- back to Eagle Lake for what seems like round 7 or 8. We started early but there was already a lot of people fishing from the bank. Right off the bat I hooked up using a roaring river special under a bobber. I had a knot failure as I was bringing the fish in that ended the fight. Shortly there after I broke off another on a hook set. @Prifish then catches a nice Eagle lake rainbow. We commited to bailing Eagle Lake by 9:30am. We wanted to get @Prifish his pryamid lake fish. I had been told of another lake(crater lake,ca) within the Eagle Lake rainbow distribution map. Rumor has that it counts for WNTI but not for the California Heritage Challenge. A nice little lake with eager fish.

@Prifish and I managed to pull off a short notice run to Reno, NV. We had 2 primary goals: Eagle lake rainbows and Lahontan Cuthroats at Pyramid lake. We hoped for a couple side species but really only wanted the 2 species. The weather forecast looked great for fishing but not for catching. 50/60s for highs and lows right at 30 mostly sunny and light winds. The itinerary was to fly in mid-day Friday and then run 2 hours to Eagle Lake. I had some intel where fish were at and catchable from bank. We fished hard from noon until dark and only had one bite. We really hoped to catch our Eagle Lake fish day one but knew we had additional days if needed. Day 2 was guided at Pyramid. We fished hard and did a lot of bobber watching and caught 2 cutts, biggest fish was 3lbs and fished sun up to sun down nonstop. I did not get a picture of the bigger fish. It slipped from my hands and right out of the float tube.

It appears as though we are going to get another shot at Eagle Lake Rainbows. The good news-I am told fall fishing makes it easier, weather looks much better this go around. The goal is Eagle Lake but we have a backup option that counts for our Western Native nearby that I am told is a "slam dunk". Goal is 4 species in 4 days total. More to come.

When they did their study the parker bottoms area was absolutely full of browns. Would be interesting to see the distribution like they use to give by section. I also hope the brown trout study ultimately leads to some regulation changes that produce more larger browns.