A Matching Set Of Trout

[Al Agnew]

Al,

The nice Cutthroat you caught below Livingston reminded me of a comment I had read in The Montana Angling Guide by Chuck Fothergill and Bob Sterling. In their 2002 description of the gradual transformation from a Cutthroat fishery in the upper river to a Brown and Rainbow fishery in the lower river they make this comment “At Springdale you’ll notice the reappearance of Cutthroat Trout”. I have often wondered if Cutthroat still makes up a significant portion of the trout population on this part of the river or if this was just the case when research was done for the book.

Interesting. I do know that I catch a cutthroat now and then around the house, which is just below Livingston...maybe 1 cutthroat for every 25 or so browns and rainbows. And we've caught them on downstream to Springdale and below, sometimes getting into a pod of them rising to bugs. On the other hand, I can't remember the last time I caught one between Mallard's Rest about 12-15 miles above Livingston and Mayor's Landing in Livingston...but as you go upstream from there, you catch one now and then, and above Yankee Jim Canyon up toward Gardiner you catch a lot of them. You'll also occasionally catch one in the spring creeks running into the Yellowstone a few miles above Livingston.

The creeks running into the Yellowstone in Paradise Valley above Livingston mostly have lots of cutthroat. Some of them are almost entirely cutthroat. But the streams running into the river below Livingston have few if any except in upper reaches far from the river. The Shields has very few until you get way upstream, and the Boulder doesn't have any for quite a few miles upstream. So those lower river cutthroat probably aren't coming from the tributaries, they have to be either coming down the river itself or maintaining a viable population down there.