Ep 141: Completing the Western Native Trout Challenge and the Utah Cutt Slam, with Michael Broome
Michael Broome first appeared on Fish Untamed in episode 131 to talk about completing the Wyoming Cutt Slam. Since then, he has completed both the Utah Cutt Slam and the first tier of the Western Native Trout Challenge. In this episode, we talk about his recent trip out west completing these challenges, lessons he learned along the way, and much more.
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 141 with Michael Broome on completing the Western Native Trout Challenge and the Utah Cutt Slam. You were on not terribly long ago, so we won't have to go deep into your backstory on fishing. But we can dive in now to the cutt slams. And I know-- or actually, I don't know if you know, but I covered the Utah cutt slam recently with another guest. So it'll be interesting to compare how your experience went compared to his. So I'll kind of let you dive in here and tell me, you know, about your recent cutt slam and we'll kind of go from there and, and hear how it compared to your last one. So I'll let you take it away here and tell me, tell me about your Utah cutt slam.
Michael
Well, Katie, thanks for having me back. I can't believe it's been a year since we completed the Walter, Steve and I completed the Wyoming cutt slam. Yes, this year, the Utah cutt slam, we completed that a little bit You know last year when we spoke it was we we left the city of Louisville and drove across the country And ended up in Pinedale, Wyoming It took us three days out and then three days back and after reflecting on you know How much time we spent on the road we decided this year? You know what? We are going to fly out to Salt Lake City and just cut out six days of drive time and focus that time on actually fishing. So for us this year, you know, the Utah Trout Slam was fantastic. This slam started April 27th, 2016, so it's relatively new compared to the Wyoming Trout Slam, you know, that was 1996. So for, you know, the Utah Trout Slam, so far year to date, 4,900 anglers have signed up, 1,624 have actually participated and completed the slam. Talking with the Utah director, the Utah Trout Slam director. 2023 was a record year for them. 245 people completed the slam and at 2024, 320 have already completed the slam. So it's been, I think these slams are starting to pick up popularity. Obviously Utah is very densely populated so you've got a lot more anglers right there than we did with Wyoming, but it's just been, you know, it's just as they spoke with me they're overwhelmed with the popularity of the Utah Trout Slam and what they're able to do with the funding that comes in from that. So, but for us, you know, last year we did, it was very point A to point B. This year with the Utah Trout Slam, we, when we arrived, we decided that we were going to rent camping gear from REI and we picked up, we had the camping gear we purchased for two weeks. We Um, and everything we would need, you know, last year was very much point a, we have to be to this point for this year. We just decided if we have the camping gear, it's in the car. We can go and we can do whatever we want. We don't have to be on such a schedule that takes away from, you know, somewhat of the joy of just being out there and relaxing. So we picked up our gear Sunday night in Salt Lake city, went to the hotel. And then Monday we started the slam. It was the start of what could have been five days, it could have been 14 days, but we weren't going to be pressured like we were last year with real tight time constraints.
Katie
Yeah. I remember that being a big part of your story last time was that there were cutoffs. You had to get to this river and it was stressful if it was blown out or something and you're like, "Oh, no. We've all got to get our fish before we move to the next spot." It sounds like this may have been a better way to do it. I know we'll get into it, but do you think that flying in to give yourselves that extra time was the right call? Would you do that again if you did it over again?
Michael
Absolutely. We're looking at the Nevada Trout Slam next year. I listened to the podcast. After I listened, I said, "That sounded very intense and uptight. It doesn't sound like a fishing trip. It sounded like a business meeting." the group we decided, "Hey, let's just fly out there and if we need to just have a little bit more of a relaxed experience." Definitely for the people that don't live in Utah, if you can do a fly-in trip and just go from day to day, I think it's a better experience.
Katie
And remind me, was it the same group of guys as it was last time?
Michael
It was. Walter, Steve, and myself were part of the group here in Louisville, the Derby City Fly Fishers and you know Walter started this whole process last year for the Wyoming Trout Slam and we get along. It's a great three guys that we are two guys that we can just we get along we work together well so we decided to keep that group and to head out to Utah.
Katie
Now walk me through the process of renting gear from REI because I've actually never done that but it sounds like a really useful thing to do especially if you're flying somewhere and you don't have to carry a bunch of bulky stuff to your destination it kind of opens things up a little bit if you can fly somewhere. So what's the process of renting gear?
Michael
They have different packages and Walter called and we needed the gear for three people. So everybody received a sleeping bag, a small Coleman stove, the tents, the sleeping pads, a table for food preparation and you just decide how long you're going to be out and you rent it. For us, it was $620. Maybe that's a lot if you live in Utah and you can provide your own camping gear. But for people that were going to have to pack all this on a plane or a FedEx it out, it's more economical just to go through, tell them what you want. They tell you your options. And we picked it up and then just returned it, and we were done.
Katie
Now, what's the process for it sounds like there's different packages that they have. Because obviously, you probably don't need a table for every person, a stove for every person, but every person needs sleeping equipment. So are you able to kind of mix and match and say, "We just need one table for the group, but everyone's going to need a sleeping pad," or something like that?
Michael
You can. It's a la carte. You can pick what you want. If you have five folks, you can get bigger tents, you can get bigger stoves. Sleeping bags were, I think, rated at 40, which was fine for all but one night. So it's decent gear. It's very good, good quality gear and it got us through just fine.
Katie
Did they have different options for things like sleeping bags where you could say, "Hey, we would like something a little bit warmer," or did they have a "you take what you get" policy?
Michael
I think they did. Looking back, I think you could go down to 10 below and what have you. We knew, of course, that raises the price with the higher the quality, but we knew for the most part, September 15th, even in the higher elevations, we weren't going to be that challenged with the temperatures. So it was good. We also purchased all the food ahead of time as well. When we landed, we picked up all our-- and obviously, you're not going to take a lot of perishables. We had all the hydrated food that we just prepared with water, boiling water. And it was-- for a couple of days, that's fine.
Katie
That's acceptable. Yeah, you don't want to be eating that for too long. But I think your system actually sounds really great to fly in somewhere, bring all the gear, the personal gear that you need, but then be able to go pick up everything else, have pre-ordered or pre-rented, show up, grab it, and then at the end of the trip not have to worry about carrying all that stuff back with you, just drop it off and head out. That sounds like a really nice setup that I've never -- I don't do a lot of fly somewhere trips and do stuff like we do a lot of stuff around Colorado, but that sounds like a really great system to fly out of state and be able to do all this really conveniently for not too much money.
Michael
It wasn't. Divided by three people, you're $200 a person, and it took a lot of the stress that we went through last year packing everything and getting everything to Wyoming. This year it was, you know, you pull up, they had it ready for us and we just checked out.
Katie
So what was the planning like this time? Because it sounds like it was much more relaxed, no real time limits on places you're going to go, but you obviously still need to have some kind of schedule or plan to link places up in an efficient manner. So how did the planning go while still accounting for the fact that you wanted it to be a little bit more relaxed and a little bit more like a go with the flow fishing trip instead of a business meeting.
Michael
Well, we had two meetings at my house and we went through, you know, as, as I look at the, or as people will look at the websites, they'll see, and I did some research, just, just put some notes together. But for the Bonneville, the Colorado, the Bear River and the Yellowstone, those are the four, four fish that are required for the Utah trout slam. You know, the Bonneville has 32 watersheds, basins to find these fish. The Colorado had 38. The Bear River has 12 different watersheds and the Yellowstone has three. So for us, since we added six days to this trip, yes, we had a starting point, but we had a lot of options that if one... And this did happen, so I'll get into later, but there was a lot of different areas that we could cover now with six extra days available to us. So it was no longer Pinedale day one, and we have three days to get through the Wyoming range to get over and start our trip up to Yellowstone.
Katie
I'm going off of the last person I spoke to about this trip. I remember hearing that you know, there's up in the up in the far corner, far northeast corner is like the kind of the hard one to get. I assume that's the Yellowstone, right?
Michael
It was and he was talking about going through the town of Yost, which is right on the border of Idaho. And it was, I'll be honest Katie, that was an easy fish to get. It was the smallest Creek I've ever been to. I thought, I, we travel all this way and accomplished all three of the other fish and we went up to Yost and the river, it's the smallest creek I've ever fished. And I said, I can't believe there's fish here. But within an hour and a half, the three of us had fish.
Katie
Wow. Okay. So that's, that's maybe a little bit different. And I know he had some weather problems and things like that. But I was wondering, did you take that into account that that one might be, that might be harder to get because there's fewer options for like where you can go. Was that like a, you know, put it early so you can have a lot of time to do it? Or was it put it late so you can knock all the others out and then be able to go up there and just like focus on it? Was there any sort of consideration for that?
Michael
So as we landed in Salt Lake City, we really did not go south. We stayed and went out towards, we were out in the mountain range, the Uinta mountain range and then went up to Evanston. So Yost was the final spot for us just because we were then going to continue on up to Idaho and try to complete the Western Native Trout Challenge. So yes, it was stressful because the water levels, what was the water level going to be like? But for us, it's the farthest distance from the Salt Lake City Airport and naturally, it just was the natural progression for the final fish on this slam. So that had to be the final fish. Gotcha.
Katie
So yeah, walk me through how your trip went. You leave the airport, you go pick up your gear and where do you go from there?
Michael
So really Monday morning, we spent, I don't want to say a layup, but everybody that we with a couple of guide services said that Monday morning, you really want to head out 15 miles from the airport. We run into Mill Creek and Mill Creek Canyon is where the Bonneville was. And it was, you know, a smaller, it was, it was definitely bigger than the experience out at, in Yost where we fished on Johnson Creek, but it was a small creek. It's not one that I think most anglers might show up and say, Hey, this looks fantastic. It was, there was a lot of brush. It was a little bit more accessible obviously than in the Johnson Creek, but the three of us caught the fish really quick. Within two hours, we had the Bonneville, we were feeling good. You know, I'm thinking to myself, wow, this is gonna be a slam dunk. We're gonna be having a good time. Wednesday, this is gonna be done. And if, you know, as people listen to this, you can go on and there's a lot of YouTube videos and a lot of anglers out there, seems like the most of them are the ones that live in Salt Lake City. And you can Google and a lot of folks we'll do this slam in one day. Like this whole trip for us was 500 miles. There was a 500 from Salt Lake City all the way to Yost. We drove 500 miles. A lot of folks will try to do that. And again, you can cut that mileage down, but if you YouTube it, a lot of folks wanna do it in one day. That's part of, you know, that's the next level challenge. Hey, I completed this in one day. It wasn't, you know, obviously that wasn't gonna be for us. So after we hit the Bonneville, we were all feeling good And we sent, we packed up and headed to Kamas. And we were Kamas, Utah, stopped in the Kamas Fly Shop just to get some, you know, some local intelligence just on where we were gonna be heading. From there, we were in the Duchenne River in the Duchenne Mountain area. And that was where we spent the first night camping and we were looking for the Colorado Cutthroat. So, you know, that was our first experience. And I tell you, I learned a lot on this trip. You know, last year it was all about the fishing, but, and as I will go through, just, you know, mentioned 500 miles we traveled. This really to me, and I think a lot of people, once they do this, it becomes more than just a fishing trip. It was epic travel with some of these Forest Service roads that I don't experience here in Kentucky, but just getting to some of these destinations on these Forest Service roads are fantastic. The camping opportunities, the BLM and the Forest Service opportunities to camp along these rivers or in these mountain ranges. It's something that sometimes you might miss that if you don't get off the beaten path. So for us, it was last year was fishing this year. I think with the, with the, the ability to spend more time and relax, it really became a fishing trip that had epic scenery with the, with the camping. And I think people that do this trip, if they, if they want to do it one day, that's fantastic. But if you can spend some time and you can enjoy the scenery and enjoy the road trip. You really get to some of the back parts of the country that the average person might not get the opportunity to see unless they're doing one of these trips.
Katie
Yeah, I think the one-day challenge would be fun for somebody who, let's say, lives in Salt Lake. They've got a weekend available and they're like, "I'm going to try to knock this out." But I think for anyone coming out of town, more for the experience, doing it in one day sounds like it would be stressful and not super fun. If you've got the time to just enjoy it, just enjoy it.
Michael
And as I go through the, I went through the completion page on the Utah Trout Slam and 90% of the people are from Utah. I don't think it's a, I don't think the folks from the East Coast or from Kentucky or Missouri, I don't see a lot of people making this a destination fishing trip. I don't know. Maybe it just hasn't caught on with a lot of the other folks outside of the Wyoming, the Montana, the Utah, and some of the bigger states that have these trout slams.
Katie
Yeah, I don't remember if we talked about this last time, but I'm still so surprised that Colorado doesn't have one. I know we're part of the Western Native Trout Challenge, which I know we'll get to later. But I just can't believe it with the number of species we have here and being very much one of the Western fly fishing destinations that people are coming to, regardless of the challenges, that we don't have one yet. It just feels like we're missing out.
Michael
Well, it's interesting. And I know I'll get into this later, but I know we talked about this last year. But Montana, we did complete the Western Native Trout Slam. But in the state of Montana, and I've done some research on why this would be, but back in 2019, I don't know if state legislature or what just deemed that any type of contest needed to be completed on a stocked lake or reservoir. So you know, there's no fishing in Montana on the rivers to complete, one, they don't have their own trout slam, and two, for the Western Native, we fished in a stocked reservoir to complete their segment, the Montana segment of the Western Native.
Katie
That's such a strange law. And I guess I can see kind of the spirit of where it's coming from. Maybe we don't want to turn wild wildlife into tournament fodder. But to catch one fish and release it as part of a challenge seems very much not in the spirit of what this might be aiming to do, which is to prevent hundreds of people from descending on a body of water and removing all the fish from it and killing them all. And I feel like these are two very different types of quote unquote "tournaments." This isn't a tournament. You'd think that to encourage people to go out and catch one native fish and put it back, that's not going to have an impact on the resource.
Michael
I thought about that. For us, our group, we would catch one fish and we were gone. There was no multiple fish. It was like, "Hey, we're moving on. We caught one fish." I don't want to say guilty, but I don't feel like we pressured anything for the last two years. good that, hey, one, two fish, we're on the road, we're heading out.
Katie
Yeah, Utah's native trout aren't struggling because the three of you came in and each caught a fish and moved on.
Michael
Well, and I'll get into this a little bit later, but the amount of the money that goes in and comes in from these slams really goes towards some great things for the rest of us to experience down the road.
Katie
Right, right.
Michael
So with the funding. But no, that was Tuesday. We were Deschenes, we spent the night right along the river, fantastic campsite. And then Tuesday we got up and none of us caught the fish. So we're like, okay, yesterday was, you know, got a little bit overconfident with Mill Creek. Steve finally caught the Colorado. So Steve was on with the Colorado and he had also caught the Bonneville. For Walter and I had not caught anything. So like I mentioned earlier, with the Colorado having 38 different watersheds, basins to find these fish, you know, we packed up. We said, okay, we're done with the Colorado. We're going to head out and we're going to head to another part of the state. Not too far away. I think it was like 80 miles, but we ended up fishing the Weber river outside of Oakley, Utah. And for us, we were fishing that river was the bear river cutt. And we were able to hop scotch or, you know, hop from one location to another little bit easier than we did last year. And Walter ended up catching the Bear River. So he caught his Bear River on the, uh, on the Weber river. And I was, I had one fish, Steve had his one fish and Walter now had two. So.
Katie
I, I remember the Weber coming up last time when I talked to a Zig who did the Utah slam hit. I think that the Weber was his kind of like home, home area. So that, that name rings a bell for me.
Michael
It was, it was right outside of, uh, it was right, not too far from Camas, but it was right outside of the town of, what did I say, Oakley.
Katie
At this point, are you still feeling pretty good? I know you're trying to relax, but there's also got to be some amount of just kind of keeping up on, how are we doing? How's our time going? Are you still feeling better than you were during Wyoming?
Michael
This was Tuesday and Walter was flying out of Missoula, Montana the following Wednesday. So although we wanted to catch and complete the Western native trout challenge, which is completely different than the Utah, we knew we had seven days. We just had to get these fish and get Walter up to Missoula, Montana for a 6 a.m. flight.
Katie
Sure.
Michael
So, um, it was a little bit, you know, last year when we were fishing in some of the rivers, the, uh, you know, the horse Creek and what have you, we caught exactly the species we were there to catch. This year was different. I'll be honest. I caught some, uh, brook trout and, you know, you catch a fish and you're trying to You complete this with a Colorado or a Bonneville, and you bring the fish in, and it's a beautiful brook, but it's not the fish you wanted. So a little bit different than last year. There was other species in here that we caught that weren't... Wyoming was very much, you caught the fish, and you caught the fish that you were there to catch.
Katie
Were you actually hanging around to do a little bit of recreational fishing for these, or is it just, "We're trying to catch the cutthroat, but before we actually get the species that we're looking for, a couple of brook trout come in. Were you hanging around and deliberately trying to just do a little bit of fishing for fun since you had a little bit more time or were you still kind of on the road?
Michael
We were on the road. I know I set this up as a fun trip, but there was still, we had a lot of time, so the intensity wasn't there, but once we were done with that fish, we had so much water to fish, so many different options that once we caught the fish, we were done. And then if Steve caught his fish, we were, and the other two, Walter and I weren't catching any. It was time to move on.
Katie
Got you. So what next? You're continuing to move on. Where are you going next?
Michael
So Wednesday, again, this was a camping trip. So three of the five nights we were in camping sites. And it was nice. We used, there's an app and I'm sure you're familiar with it. It's called Trout Routes. Last year we didn't use that as much, but this year with all of these bodies of water, all the different rivers and the watersheds that we could fish. We had, Walters has had this app forever and it's trout routes. And you know, you go to that app and there's 48 different states listed on it. There's 50,000 streams listed, 350,000 access points. So for us, we were scouting out these rivers but we were also scouting out what kind of availability for public use is there. Like the Weber River where Steve caught his, was only two sections on trout wraps that showed trout routes that showed up and as we drove up you know it was small you would have passed it on the highway but it was right there where it was supposed to be so that gave us access to the Weber River. So for us what we looked ahead and said okay we're gonna move on to another river let's look pull up the app look at the access points and see what kind of availability there is for us to you to get on that river.
Katie
Now what does Trout Routes offer, just for people who aren't familiar with it? I know it shows like trout streams around the US, but what kinds of information can you pull up about a given stream?
Michael
You know, they've got their different designations on if it's a blue ribbon, gold ribbon stream, it will tell you the access points. It'll also show in green, you know, public lands and what have you. So when you go there, the app picks you up where you're driving, and it'll show you, "Hey, you can get in here, and this is your access point." So I know you see different reviews. Everyone's got their own opinion on it, but for us, it was very helpful. It was helpful because it showed us exactly... Because like I said, on the Weber River outside of Oakley, there was only two spots over a 15-mile space. If we had... Without that app, I don't think we would have been able to know exactly where we could fish where we went in was very private looking but the state had an agreement with I guess the the private or the landowners and they allowed access.
Katie
Because I assume the Utah Cutt-Slam tells you which bodies of water you know count for each species but they're not giving you details about like you know go to this bridge and that's where you're gonna access it they just say you know this drainage is where you're gonna find this species and it's gonna qualify so you still need a little bit more information than what you're gonna get from the slam portion of the planning part.
Michael
So as you go on these websites, like just for the Utah, it says where to catch the Colorado River cutthroat. Well, they've got the, one of the descriptions, they've got the north slope of the Uinta Mountains, and there's eight different watersheds that you could fish, whether it's East Fork or the Blacks Fork or Henry's Fork. So they just tell you the river. You then have to, like we did with the trout wraps, investigate, okay, that's a where can we go in? So that's where the trout wraps for this was, last year during the Wyoming slam, we were all in public land from Pinedale all the way over to Afton. So those rivers we knew were in BLM property. This was intermingled a little bit more so. And I think you find that with some of the more densely populated states that, whether it's Colorado, and that may be why Colorado doesn't have a trout slam, 'cause a lot of it is a little bit more private land that runs through some of these great streams. I don't know. I'm just guessing.
Katie
Yeah, we do. Well, I think we have a lot of public land But our private land laws are not favorable to anglers So, you know that there's there's plenty of places to access But if you happen to end up in the wrong section of land, it's not good for you. That's that's what we've got going for us
Michael
so, you know, we were just lucky Utah's and we're like I said, we're digging in to see in what New Mexico and Nevada's like next year, but no I think these if these if these states have these slams They're gonna they're gonna know ahead of time. Hey, there's access for these anglers to come out and do these and accomplish these things
Katie
Right, they're not gonna suggest the body of water that people can't access or go to
Michael
Exactly, so, and it's you know, it's interesting I know we focus more on fly-fishing but there is Speaking with the Utah trout slam Cutt slam director there is opportunity for people that if they want to do spinning rods There is that opportunity as well as, you know, if you're going to use live bait. She just said that people just if they want to complete the trout slam fantastic They just have to know the rules and the regulations of each body of water. So they've opened it up for everybody I don't think you're going to be using a spinning rod on some of their streams we were on but it is open for everybody
Katie
Yeah do you happen to know if any of the bodies of water are you know fly and fly an artificial lure only or I know some rivers have those regulations that the slam might say you're allowed to use spinning gear But like it's up to you to know You know whether you're allowed to use bait on whatever given drainage you go to is that a thing?
Michael
That's and she was very specific that if anglers are gonna participate in this and they're going to be Qualified at the end when they submit these pictures they have to know the rules they have to have to ahead of time It's a little bit easier for us because fly fishing, you know, there's not a live bait There's no spinning rods or there's no spinners, but on the for the other groups They just have to do the research and know exactly what the rules are for that body of water
Katie
Do they have a way of checking that? I mean obviously if you were to check me check by a game warden while you're out there, you know You're gonna they're gonna need to check and make sure you're following the rules But when you submit your fish, do they ask like what type of gear you're using or anything like that?
Michael
They didn't
Katie
okay.
Michael
They didn't so that yeah, you're right. I don't know They just what they asked for just like Wyoming They asked for the body of water a picture of the fish and the date that you caught it.
Katie
Gotcha. Okay,
Michael
so so I don't know That's a good question. Maybe I don't But I just thought it was nice that yeah, you know, this is open to anybody that wants to try to complete this
Katie
Sure. Sure. So, uh, what's next on the trip Thursday?
Michael
We ended up in the Logan River and we all finished with the Bear River Cutt that was that was right outside of Logan Logan River the Canyon caught the We did a Bear River cutt and then spent the night, first night in. We went into Logan, refreshed and Friday morning is when we woke up. We had one fish left and that's when we went out to Yost. We drove a couple hours out and caught the Yellowstone cutt out of the Johnson Creek. Like your previous interviewer said, it's interesting. You pull up and it was a little bit nerve wracking at the end, but for us, it was a quick hour and a half, we all had the fish.
Katie
What was the fishing like on this tiny creek? Is it just a foot wide and fish packed in there? You're trying to land a dry fly in there? What was the fishing like?
Michael
It was dry fly and there was no casting. It was just tossing your fly almost by hand, just tossing it in these little areas and the fish come out of nowhere. We saw no fish, but some of these areas are like, "I bet there's a fish there." Sure enough, tossed it in and I was shocked when Walter caught the first fish. I said, "You caught a fish." Because I thought, I was like, "We're going to have to travel and go to some of these other, the other two locations." But from some of the people that mentioned, this is the creek to catch them on. This is the one that if you're going to catch them, it's the easiest.
Katie
Good to know that the conditions, while they might be volatile, and because it sounds like Zig had a little bit more trouble with weather and stuff like that, that when it's good, it can be good. It's not necessarily a challenge like it can be, but you can also show up and have a really easy day, everyone catching fish right away.
Michael
It was. It was, like I said, instantaneous. It was a big relief. We had then completed the slam and I was just happy because I didn't want to backtrack. We were already way out. It was the middle of nowhere. It was another Forest Service road, pretty rough as we got back in there. I was like, "Let's hope we can wrap this up on Friday and move on up to Twin Falls, Idaho, to start the Western Native." That was our plan.
Katie
Now, I don't know if you'll know this because you obviously have the experience of when you were there, but Especially these more northern areas Do you happen to know like kind of what time of year? Things would probably start to kind of turn off and you wouldn't want to come out and try this slam It's okay if you don't know, but I'm just wondering like what what seasonality Like window, do you have to complete the slam before things might start to get snowed in or socked in?
Michael
You know, we completed ours in September September I think 25th and the weather was perfect. We didn't, there was no rain. I've, I've been tracking just the, on the Utah slam page and folks are still out there completing it. Last week they had people, so they're still, they're fishing every single day. We had no issues whatsoever. It was, it was the, the days were nice. There was one night that we woke up, uh, and it was 24 degrees. So a little chilly, but outside of some cold weather in the, in the early mornings, I don't know. I'm assuming now it's getting a little bit sketchy and there's higher elevations. Just knowing what we're getting in West Virginia on the East Coast as I track some of the potential fishing trips over there, a little bit more snow starting to appear in the Smoky Mountains as well.
Katie
Well, I think you may have inadvertently given a good tip for figuring that out. It's like being able to go see when other people are completing it. Not that a freak storm can't come in and we've gotten blizzards here on Labor Day, but Labor Day in Colorado is it's usually pretty hot. So now that that can't happen, but maybe just going on and checking, you know, when people are completing this might give you a good kind of general window of like, okay, people are completing this from, you know, let's say May through the end of October, pretty reliably. So that could be like a good way to plan a trip if someone's trying to figure out when to go.
Michael
And honestly, for where we were, you know, if you're outside of Salt Lake City by 10, 15 miles, that's fine. but we took some, we were on some forest service roads, deep, deep, 40, 45 miles into the back country. And that's not really where you want to get stuck with issues. I worry just about tires and maintenance. For the time of season we were there, I didn't think one minute about any type of bad weather. They're trying to get us out of this in the snow. That's why for me, I think early October, I'm sorry, late October would be it for me.
Katie
Yeah, and maybe just having a backup plan of being able to bail. Don't get too attached to finishing it and put yourself in a sticky situation. If weather looks like it's coming in, even if you didn't think it was going to, that it's not worth getting stuck 40 miles out in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard if you don't have the stuff for that.
Michael
And like I mentioned before, for people, I wasn't a camper. I didn't really, I was never into that until this year. for the, it really kind of hit me and I think it would hit other people that are looking to do these type of adventures. They're really off the beaten path campsites and they're just great. You get the fishing, you get your campfire going and it's pretty inspiring to be out there.
Katie
Just a little side tangent about this, I want to ask, what opportunities do you have back in Kentucky for this? Is there much forest service land? Is dispersed camping a thing out there that you can do or is that more of a Western thing? I've never tried to do it out east, so I'm not sure.
Michael
I mean, there are certain areas, Eastern Kentucky, where it's more rural, there's, but nothing to the extent that you have, you know, most of designated campsites that we all are so used to back here, it's like, Oh, we have this campsite we have to register. But the, and maybe that's just me not knowing as much as I should. Maybe this would open up a little bit more in West Virginia and rural North Carolina, but for us in Kentucky, it's, it's pretty, it's, uh, you're limited to designated campgrounds.
Katie
Gotcha.
Michael
Um, and again, that's, that's what makes the Utah, the Wyoming, I'm assuming the Nevada, uh, obviously the California. It just, it just makes it a whole different experience when you have the opportunity to just head out and, you know, not have a designated spot that night. You just know with your research ahead of time that there's designated spots. And also, you know, in September, September 15th through the 30th, schools are back in. So the summer crowds aren't there.
Katie
Yeah. Yeah. And I think out here, just the, the amount of space for the number of people, the ratio is a lot better out here for that. So I think there's just more of an opportunity to go, you know, pitch a tent wherever, whereas back east, there's just so many people and so little public land relatively that, you know, you kind of have to start designating things like that, or otherwise people might overrun places. I mean, there's just a lot of people.
Michael
You all are very lucky, very lucky to have all that opportunity out there for sure. So it's, uh, it's, it's nice for us to be able to come out and experience that. So we finished, when we were done with the slam, we, we left Yost and we, we spent, uh, about two hours and that's when we drove up and we were going to start the Western Native Trout Challenge. And for us, we had completed Wyoming and we had completed Utah. And to start with the expert level, that's the lowest level for the Western Native Trout Challenge.
Katie
Wow, that's a high bar for the lowest level. Expert?
Michael
I know, exactly.
Katie
There's not like a beginner or an intermediate just goes straight to expert?
Michael
Well, there's expert and that's six species with four states that you have to accomplish. The next level is the advanced caster, which is 12 species in eight states. And then the master is 18 species in 12 states.
Katie
All right, I'm going to put in my opinion here that advanced should be below expert.
Michael
Exactly.
Katie
Who's naming these things?
Michael
I don't know, but we decided that, obviously with time, I think the Western Native Trout Challenge is something you do over the years. You're not going to accomplish 12 species in eight states over a two-week holiday. I wouldn't suspect. So for us, we knew that we had Wyoming and we had Utah now complete. And our goal then was to, we spent about two hours, two and a half hours driving up to Twin Falls, Idaho, went into the local fly shop there, even though we kind of knew where we wanted, but he was able to direct us, the owner. We ended up going to Rock Creek, which is only 25 miles outside of Twin Falls. And we were able to catch the red band, which was the first, we had never caught a red band. and so maybe I should back up. The Western Native, we needed to get two more states and our trip was to catch one or two of the fish in Idaho and then end our time in Montana catching the other. That would have given us the six fish in the four states.
Katie
Remind me, Montana, you are able to use it as part of the Western Native Trout Challenge, but it has to be a stocked, designated body of water for this?
Michael
It does. It does have to be a designated stocked facility. Montana has... We ended up going to a reservoir called the Highlight Reservoir, and it was about 25 miles outside of Bozeman, Montana, and it was a reservoir. It was a reservoir. It didn't feel... We had experienced so much wilderness in the previous states. I was just shocked, but that's what we had to do. We pulled up, there was people with their paddleboards and some other things, so it didn't feel real fishy, but that's what we had to do. So we had one opportunity, Steve and I, and we were able to catch the West Slope cutthroat there.
Katie
That's such a, I know we already talked about the Montana thing, but especially for such a wild feeling state, like people, I feel like still think Montana's kind of being the last frontier in a way and to have that be the state that, you know, makes you go fish a reservoir just feels funny.
Michael
It may be just, you know, because that's the, that's the place where everybody thinks when they think trout fishing.
Katie
Yeah, wild trout fishing.
Michael
If it was done for protection, you know, hey, we're going to protect this resource. We don't want a bunch of people up here fishing. So they've, you know, and I met with JD out in Bozeman. He's the director of the Western Native Challenge. And he said, you know, that may change sometime, But for right now, they just like it. They want to keep it to where it's just a lake. And it adds another level. I think you remember last year we talked about fishing in Yellowstone, Yellowstone Lake. Fishing in a lake is a whole different story than fishing in a small stream. You pull up in one of these lakes and you're like, you don't have a boat, you don't have access to a whole lot of the shoreline. You're like, "Okay, I'm going to start throwing streamers, woolly buggers. What are these fish?" Casting 50 yards or 50 feet out, stripping it back in. We stayed at, we were, Steve and I, we fished for about five hours before we caught the two fish that were needed. We did. We got there in the middle of the day. It was a warm 80 degrees. I said, "We're going to be here a while because I don't see any activity." The lake brings a whole other level of challenge that you wouldn't get with some of these smaller streams, I think, the regular streams.
Katie
I know we've talked about all of them, but what were the six species that you caught then? Because the four were in Utah, right? And then you had two more. What were those two? The red band and—
Michael
We did. We caught the red band and the West Slope.
Katie
The West Slope. Okay.
Michael
And I also caught a bull trout.
Katie
Oh, congratulations.
Michael
We caught a bull trout. We did. When we went up to complete the Western Native, we did two different locations for the state of Idaho. Rock Creek, which is where we caught the red band, which is 20 miles outside of the town. But then we went up to Sawtooth National Forest and we went to Big Smoky Creek, which is another fantastic location, very remote. It was very remote, but that's where we caught the bull trout. So when I submitted, I submitted the bull trout for Idaho and the red band for Idaho and then the Bozeman was the West Coast or the West Slope.
Katie
And for the Western Native Trout Challenge, I know this one was six species, four states, You can do any combination of these, right? It's just that you have to have four different states represented and six different species represented. But how you piece those together is kind of up to you, right?
Michael
Exactly. You can't use, like you can't have the Colorado cutt for Utah and then use it again, submit it again for this level, for my level, the six species. You can't, like we caught the Colorado in Wyoming last year. You can't take the Colorado I cutt, or the Colorado from Utah and apply that. It has to be a separate species. You do. You do. For me, I was lucky enough. I had the bull trout. I had the... What did I have? I had the bull trout. I had the red band. I had the Colorado, the Bonneville, the Yellowstone, the Yellowstone cutt, and then one other. I did. I had all six, and they were all separate.
Katie
Remind me what the next level up is and do you have plans to finish up the next level?
Michael
That's the Advanced Caster and that's 12 species in 8 states. So that's, you know, I think there's no goal for that. That's a lot, I think as we progress. You know, we're looking at some other trips next year. We're looking at potentially the three of us going up to Quebec or Saskatchewan and going after some of the pike and some of the walleye possibly. But you know obviously if we do head out to Nevada, there's six species on that, Trout Slam, Arizona has five. So there's some other opportunities, it just may not be, I don't think next year would be the advanced caster since we're only right now at four states.
Katie
And you can do it over any time period, right? If you go out and catch like one species in a new state next year, that'll add one to your list even if you don't finish it that year, you can take as long as you want to get through everything.
Michael
You can. is for all, both the Utah, the Wyoming, and now the Western Native. You know, once you sign up, you have a lifetime. There isn't a cutoff period that you have to complete this. So you can spend, you know, obviously it's gonna take years to complete if you're interested in the master level of the Western Native, but you have that time. For us, you know, the Utah Trout Slam costs $20. The Western Native costs 25. So you pay your fee, you're in their registry, and you're good to go. So, you know, you can, you actually can complete those. I've some people complete the, the Utah trout slam more than once. They want to complete it, get another medallion and what have you. You know, for us, Wyoming's done. We have the medallion, we have their certificate, same with the Utah. There's just a lot of States to complete, but I think for, for local residents that want to do multiple locations, it's a great way to support, you know, a $20. Uh, cost to, uh, to register and to, you know, have multiple slams completed in your state.
Katie
I'm kind of surprised. I know it's the Western Native Trout Challenge, but I'm not sure if it just is a matter of getting other states on board. But do you know the reason for not having a brook trout in an East Coast portion of this? You know, throw the brook trout on there and let people get a trout back in their own state?
Michael
Well, I think it's just, you know, as I've, and I've done some research, I certainly don't, you know, I'm not an expert on this, but really it started the Western Native Trout Initiative is what this started. And that was in 2006. And it's the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies for the 12 different Western states.
Katie
Okay, so it's kind of like a, there's an agency component here where they're all partnered up and that just happens to not include the Eastern states.
Michael
Exactly. So it's the 12 states and the Western Native Trout Challenge is what I took part in like, you know, the 2006, this was a separate group. There was no challenge. In 2019 is when they launched the Western Native Trout Challenge. So, you know, they had the initiative back in 2006, where, you know, they were dealing with, you look at some of the numbers, 165 fish passage barriers removed, you know, all kinds of millions of dollars in funding. The initiative started in 2019, I think just to get the public more involved in exactly what kind of initiatives are going on.
Katie
Now, this is another thing I'm not sure if you'll happen to know, but are there any non-true trout on there? Like, are there char in Alaska that count? And if char count, do things like grayling count? And other species that are in the salmonid family that are not true trout?
Michael
Well, so the Arctic grayling is, for Alaska, you know, they have the Alaska char, they have the Arctic grayling, the Arctic char. But most of everything else is a native trout. That's part of the, to help restore, protect the 21 different native trout throughout the 12 states.
Katie
Okay. So in my hypothetical world, if they did expand out east, a brook trout, even though it's not a true trout, could be included as a char because there are other char and things included in the list where they were native.
Michael
Right.
Katie
Okay. Gotcha.
Michael
But yeah, the 12 states, there's a lot of opportunity for people. Idaho doesn't have their own trout slam. They're only part of the Western Native.
Katie
OK, so they're like us.
Michael
Like Colorado.
Katie
Yeah. Well, hopefully we both get our slams because this would be a great transition to the good work that comes out of the funds raised through these programs. I'm still like, come on, everybody, let's get on this bandwagon and raise some money for conservation. But I know you had some notes on where this money goes and some of the projects that Utah specifically it's using with the funds that they're raising through this?
Michael
Well, just talking with last week, just to get a little bit more information, because I think it's nice to know where your $20 goes. It's not a lot of money. I get it, but I think a lot of us, and I'll just speak for myself, you show up at some of these streams and it's a beautiful location. There's a lot of energy that's taken behind the scenes to make these places as great as they are. for the Utah slam, they hit a mile. You know, we talked about how record number of people in 2024, 320 people had completed the slam. Well, in 2024, they hit a mile marker that, you know, a hundred thousand in donations that had come in through. You know, the, the, all the people that had registered the 4,900 people, you know, year to date that are since inception to now had, you know, had put in their $20 and just digging in a little bit deeper, you know, the habitat improvement is one of the bigger things that they try to, you know, they spend that money on. There's 20, 25 different projects that were funded. 16 of them so far have been completed. So, you know, habitat improvement, outreach and education, uh, found out they have a pretty extensive helicopter program that they do a lot of restocking in the Alpine lakes. So, you know, those things cost money. And then just the big thing is the research. You know, a lot of people with their streams, you know, how things are going, migration, things like that. So it all costs money.
Katie
Mm-hmm. It doesn't. I know you had some of those specific projects listed. I've got Beaver River written down, Clear Creek, Chalk Creek, Telemetry. Do you care to talk about any of these projects specifically? I know you had some notes on those.
Michael
Really, when I spoke with the director, she said the biggest thing that people need to know is the habitat improvement, whether it's adding fish habitat for a vibrant stream is a big thing that they do. outreach program just to educate people, whether it's a mural or it's in some grassroots, in the school system, understanding the native trout in that state or in that community. The restocking program is a big deal, even though it's the helicopter and dealing with that. And then obviously the research. The other stuff is for people if they want to spend the time and they can go on that website.
Katie
Okay.
Michael
I'm not the expert on some of that.
Katie
Do you happen to have the website pulled up, the URL for people?
Michael
You know what? It's the Utah Trout Slam.
Katie
People can always just Google that and I'm sure they'll end up on a page that includes both the information about how to complete the slam and I assume the projects are all listed in the same area. It is.
Michael
It's the Utah Trout Slam. If they Google that, this homepage has everything. If you go to the News tab that's on the website, It'll talk about, for the last couple of years, all the different programs and all the different projects that they have listed that they've completed.
Katie
That's probably better anyway than talking specifically about that right now because that's going to be ever-evolving. If someone listens to this in a year and they want to know what recent work has been done, I'm sure that's more of an evergreen way to find out what they're working on now and in the past.
Michael
Exactly. Exactly. Each project, there's a lot. I think it's interesting though that they've 25 projects have been funded and 16 have been completed. And like, you know, like I mentioned earlier, they are, the state is overwhelmed and really excited that the, you know, the number of people that have completed it this year and the growing interest in this slam.
Katie
Yeah. I know, I know we keep reiterating it, but I just feel like there's not really any downsides to this. You know, much, much against what Montana seems to be saying with their tournaments. I can't imagine that the anglers that are coming out to do these are really having a meaningful impact on the resource in a negative way, but their money is having a positive impact. So I just don't see any downsides. It gets more people involved, gets more people out and fishing, probably introduces a lot of people to native species they didn't know that they had in their state. You know, there's so many brook trout and brown trout swimming around out west that some of these native species get overlooked. So I just don't really see a downside to creating these challenges, encouraging people to get out, and raising a little bit of money for conservation.
Michael
Right. I'm far more aware of the last two slams, this one in Utah, than I ever had. I had no understanding of the amount of work that goes behind the scenes, and just the beauty of the process of making this something that's sustainable long past when you and I are out here doing this. There's a lot to it. It's certainly a learning experience for me.
Katie
The last thing I wanted to ask you about is now having done and Utah. And I know it sounds like things have maybe improved from Wyoming to Utah in terms of your logistics and you're glad that you flew out. But any other lessons that you've learned that for your next slam, let's say you're coming out to do Nevada or one of the other states, what have you learned between Wyoming and now Utah that you'll take into that next trip and any other changes you would make next time saying, "Okay, now we've seen the problems we've encountered here." Anything you would do differently next time?
Michael
If people are going to do this trip, I think the plan that I laid out for the Utah slam is the way to go. If, if you're going to travel, you know, take the time, the, the, like we did, you know, we, we had the camping equipment, we had it to where we were at our own pace, we weren't on a timeline. And I just think there's, there's so much more to experience than just catching, you know, for most of us catching an eight inch fish is not something that we're going to write home about, but the experience camping. The experience with your friends or your kids just on the water, you know, preparing meals or just getting to that location. And this is really, this was more of a hiking and a road trip type of experience. There was a lot more to this part of this slam than the other. So, but for us, as we do these, as we go forward, I think the preparation we know, because the States all have fantastic websites, they lay it out for you. You just have to plan your time, whether it's flight or whether it's driving. and just be able to pinpoint where you want to start and what type of experience you want to have. You want to do it in one day, fantastic. But if you want to take the time, I think it's well worth to slow the pace down a little bit and just enjoy exactly where you are.
Katie
And it sounds like you'd recommend trout routes as kind of a good supplemental resource for people who've, you know, they've gotten the list of rivers they can fish from whatever state that they're doing the slam in, but having those additional resources to show you, you know, where on those rivers can you actually get to the spot with different access laws in every state, you wanna make sure that you're going to a place that you're legally allowed to be before you start submitting fish from illegally accessed areas.
Michael
I mean, Google Maps can only do so much for you. That's how we started the program. We looked on the website, we saw the rivers, we started, everything was from Salt Lake City, so we Google Map everything, but Trout Route app takes you to the next level of, okay, now we know where these rivers are, let's dig into where can we actually fish and the proximity to potential camping areas that we're gonna camp. So it's not only about the access to the river, but it's like, okay, how close are we to BLM and who do we need to check in with to find out if there's camping sites that are available? You do this in the dead of summer, you might not have the camping opportunities that we had because there was no pressure whatsoever. So if you do it in the fall, when a lot of the people are gone, For us, it was perfect, and I would recommend the fall, anytime September through October, because the traffic's not there, the fishing pressure didn't exist. And I'm not sure it would exist in the middle of the summer, but some of the camping spots might. That might be a little bit more of a pressured situation.
Katie
Well, Michael, is there anything that we didn't cover that you think is worth bringing up? Otherwise, we can wrap this up.
Michael
No, I think if you have the opportunity, I've learned a lot this time around, And I highly recommend anybody if you're whether, and you know, some of these states, Nebraska, Missouri, New Mexico, California, just Google CuttSlams and see if there's a state that sponsors one in your area, take the time, do the research and they just, it's a great experience for the family, for buddies, if you have your kids, whoever, whoever's going, if you take the time, it can be an experience that you'll remember for a long time.
Katie
Sounds great. Well, I look forward to hearing your next one, whether it's a state slam or your next level going from master or expert to advanced. It still boggles my mind, but you know, if you move up in the Western Native Trout Challenge, I look forward to hearing your next adventure.
Michael
All right. Well, thanks for having me again. I appreciate it.
Katie
All right. That's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find a contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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