A Week of Gorgeous Cutts On A Fly

l have this problem when I fish. Well, it's not really a problem, as much as a preference to make my fishing trips the best - I like to fish alone. Being on a lake where I'm the only guy there is magical. Fishing a stretch of river and never seeing another human is relaxing in a way that nothing else quite is.

And the 4th of July weekend is absolutely horrible for finding alone time in the great outdoors.

Nevertheless, I soldiered on and hiked into a gorgeous lake. A few people were there when I arrived, but they left and I actually ended up having the place to myself for about 3 hours.

This is the same lake where I caught my gorgeous, giant cutthroat (pictured below) a few weeks ago.

But I'm getting ahead of myself! I also spent a day earlier this week fishing for cutts. 

A small, lonely pond up a popular canyon holds some decent sized fish, and I found one willing to come out of the water for pictures. 

I'm almost certain this is a Bonneville Cutthroat (the large one, and all the rest, are) and it's cool to see them color up like this. 

After catching that fish, I followed the stream that feeds this pond up a ways, without finding any decent fish. I did get some amazing pictures of the sunset, though. 

Absolutely breathtaking. Man, I love Utah. 

Now, on Saturday, as I hiked into the cutthroat lake, I stopped by a very small trickle of water, probably no more than 3 feet across in most places and basically a series of deep pools connected by about an inch of running water. I saw some fish running around, so I tied on a caddis (all my flies are made by myself) on the end of my fly rod. The water was so clear, and I had the perfect vantage point, to sit and watch as the fish lazily swam up and swallowed my fly. It was amazing!

I know this isn't a cutthroat...or is it? 

The fish wouldn't hold still, but if you look closely, you can see a faint orange slash peeking out right under the jaw, in the same place where a cutthroat would have a slash. I wonder if this rainbow is actually a cuttbow. 

Another rainbow ate my fly before I started hiking further into the cutthroat lake. 

Pretty fish! 

I got to the lake, and found my favorite spot for the fish. They were being incredibly picky and not liking my first few offerings. Finally, I found a pattern that seemed to do the trick. 

After I cracked the code, the fish came in pretty regularly. Not fast, but fast enough to keep me in the same spot for nearly 3 hours. 

Then, it decided to rain. I haven't been in a good summer thunderstorm in a long while. This one was welcome! 

After the rain stopped (it took a good half hour for it to stop enough for me to fish without getting drenched) I got back to fishing. 

This next fish was absolutely gorgeous! So colorful! 

The fish in this lake are some of the prettiest cutts I've ever had the opportunity to catch. Amazing fish, they are. 

This was probably the biggest fish of the day. Nothing to write home about, but a gorgeous fish nonetheless. 

I caught more tiny fish like this than I can count, but this one was really pretty so it needed a picture. 

Then, I moved to another spot on the lake. I had my spinning rod with me, and decided to throw some spinners for a while. Another nice cutt hit my blue fox. 

After him, the clouds that had dumped rain on me a while ago looked poised to come back with a vengeance. I was already soaked, but I didn't necessarily want to get more soaked, so I left the lake and its colorful cutthroat behind.