Ep 150: Adventuring Around the West for Personal Fish Projects, with Kurt Finlayson
Kurt Finlayson is a former member of Fly Fishing Team USA and avid angler. These days, he mostly focuses on his own personal fishing projects, in which he sets goals for catching different sets of species. In this episode, we talk about how he got started in competition fishing, transitioning out of that professional role, and the fish projects he makes for himself, including his desert project, Colorado cutthroat project, and much more.
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Intro
You’re listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 150 with Kurt Finlayson on adventuring around the west for personal fish projects.
Katie
All right, well I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got into the outdoors and specifically into fly fishing. I know you have a long history with fly fishing, including competition fishing and all that, so I'll let you take it away and tell me how you got introduced to it and how you got to where you are today.
Kurt
Gotcha. Thanks, Katie. Yeah, fishing started pretty early. Dad taking me out doing some fishing on the Colorado River. There was Lake Mojave, and I caught a really big rainbow trout when I was just a little kid, paraded it around the neighborhood, showing it off. I think I was hooked from then, but it took a little bit longer to get into fly fishing. My dad had been into that when we lived in California in the Sierra Nevadas, but we had moved to Texas and we went on a family vacation up to Yellowstone and did the fly fishing thing up there for the cutthroat. And I think that I'm pretty sure that was probably my first introduction to the fly rod and the cuts up there, so that was really cool. And yeah, just started the fly fishing thing there and kind of got into it more as I was in high school and college and was doing some other hobbies and stuff like that, but fly fishing was sort of in the background and kind of sitting back there twirling around a little bit. And then I was doing triathlons at the time and started to get some sponsorships of triathlons. And then I had kind of some knee issues, and so all of a sudden fly fishing looked a lot better than triathlons. And that was kind of a big change there, was really up a little bit more seriously. Had a friend in college that we used to go out a good bit. I was doing some photography and writing about fly fishing, and I got invited to go up to the OneFly, which is an event up in Wyoming that Jack Dennis puts on. It's a huge fundraiser for the Snake River's fine-spotted cutthroat trout up there. And I was like, "Wow, this is a whole new world between drift boats and just-- I think it was just the cutthroat up there that just, I was just all over." And I did that for probably, I don't know, eight to 10 years doing photography, writing, fly fishing up in that area of Jackson. And then, And I just, lucky star, I guess, Jack Dennis, well, he had asked me to do some, I guess, backup fishing for some anglers that were in that one fly. And then we were on a, it was kind of the end of the year guide trip. And I spent a day in a boat with them and kind of clicked. And I don't know how long it was after that. I got a phone call from him one night asking if I wanted to fish with fly fishing team USA in Tasmania. And I didn't know it at the time, but I was Australia. And I thought he had said Tanzania. And I was like, "Wow, I didn't know there was fishing in Africa." And so, looked that up and ended up going with fly fishing team USA to Australia and that started my competition fly fishing days. So that's kind of the quick one of my fly fishing background.
Katie
So is that how most people get their start on Team USA? Is somebody just says like, "Hey, you should come fish with us?" Because I've talked to a handful of people who have been associated with the team in some way, but for some reason I assumed there was more of like a, you know, you show up and try to qualify at some event. But it sounds like you just kind of got an invitation. Is that pretty standard?
Kurt
No, it's not standard. This was in the really early days of this. This was like 2006. And that invitation to fish in the Oceania Championships was, like I said, just kind of stars aligning. And 2006 is when we actually started doing the whole, what we called regional qualifiers earned in a national competition. And since 2006, that has evolved into what you're describing, which is the points system that's now in place that you earn points through regional competitions and make the team. And that's how from 2000, I was on the team or fished with the team from 2006 to 2016. And that's how it was throughout that. But that very first, my first introduction to it, yeah, that was literally a phone call and it was just kind of out of the blue. So it was definitely in the early days of it.
Katie
Did you enjoy your time with them?
Kurt
Oh, I loved it. I really got to see the progression of competition techniques and in what we call Euro-nymphing. I mean, when I started in 2006, we didn't know what European nymphing was. We were all essentially doing what I would call long, long dry dropper fishing, where we're using six feet between a dry and a dropper. And that was essentially to make up for the fact that indicators were not allowed in the competition. So we did what we knew best. And then we started getting people like, oh my gosh, his name just escaped me. Anyway, his name is Vladi. I can't think of his full name. And he came from Poland and was teaching a lot of this European nymphing and Polish nymphing is what we first learned. And so, that was a huge learning curve. And then there was the whole lock style, which I'm not sure how much you know about that. It's fishing on still water, fishing from a boat, anchoring's not allowed, you're fishing with the wind, you're not trolling behind the boat. And that was new to all of us as well. And that's where I really dove into trying to learn more about that. The UK, the English especially were really good at lock style fishing. And that was real comparable to my triathlon days of if you could be kind of okay at everything, you were really pretty good. And so I tried to get a lot better at lock style fishing. And so that's where I felt like I got kind of my big jump on it was getting out ahead of that learning curve. And yeah, I loved it as far as learning curve. And obviously, the friends that I made there have been lifelong friends.
Katie
How long after a new technique comes along, like you said, that wasn't really prevalent when you first started, but obviously, it's kind of really taken over. How long after a new technique arrives like that, does it take for it to kind of sweep through and have everybody be doing it? Is it a pretty rapid thing because people are like kind of on the ball trying to get that edge of the competition or do changes take time when they like show up in the fly fishing world?
Kurt
I think that the answer to that question depends on literally down to the person. There are some people on the team that were reluctant to try new things because they felt very confident in what they were doing. There was other people who were like, "Okay, this appears to be working. Let's give this a try." And for me, I was in that second camp as far as I want to try all sorts of different things, try to learn new things. And even at that, there was times where I would shrug off something. Like right now, the very fine tippet long leaders, those weren't as popular in my competition days. And I actually didn't pick those up because from a competition perspective, I wanted a little bit heavier tippet so that if I had any snag or anything like that getting snagged on the bottom or anything like that, I wanted to have 4X to be able to pull it off of there. And so I was pretty reluctant to change to those really fine tippets. So like I said, it depends on the person in the situation and what they're comfortable with. But I will say European nymphing, as we kind of know it today, when we all started understanding the advantage of that, Yeah, that was a game changer that swept through competition fishing. It was like, OK, this is a next level thing that we got to learn.
Katie
Well, moving on a little bit from competition, it sounds like at this point you're just fishing for the fun of it. Is that correct?
Kurt
Yeah, I retired in 2016. And not for any real particular reason. It was just-- that was 10 years of doing that. And there's a pretty big investment and doing that from traveling around to the different competitions, from literally the time, I mean, at that time I was on the water every day and that's a pretty big commitment. And 2016, I decided it was time to kind of take a step back from competition fishing. And pretty quick, I was like, "Okay, I gotta have something to fill this spot." I mean, I was still fishing a lot, but there was something I needed to do. And so I kind of came up with this, my fishing project. Every year I'd kind of try to write down some goals or some ideas that I would have for different fishing projects. In some cases, those were different species that I'd go after. And part of that, what I really missed was the learning curve of competition. and a lot of that was around the techniques. What I decided to focus on was learning different areas and new fish. And so I would go into different states. Usually a fishing game has some type of site that you can go to. I know Colorado has one where you can go to it and learn more about the fish species in a different area and things like that. And so I got really interested in that and started going after different things, sturgeon. I got into the cut slams that both Wyoming and Utah offer. And yeah, even some desert species in Southern Utah. I started chasing those. And so, yeah, I just kind of pick out these projects that I would go after and kind of set some goals to keep that, I don't know, motivation maybe?
Katie
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of a perfect transition into what it seems like we're gonna be talking about today. 'Cause the reason that you and I got connected is that you had reached out to me asking about some of the different cutthroat species in Colorado, so I'm excited to hear about that trip. And I'd love to hear some of these other projects you've come up with, because I'm similar in that I don't like to make things just a checkbox that I check off, but I do like having some kind of goal toward. And these kinds of projects are kind of right up my alley in terms of how I would like to approach things to, you know, set a goal for myself, attainable, but kind of some sort of category to go after, and then just focus on doing that. So I'm excited to hear about all these. I'll let you kind of talk about them in whatever order makes the most sense. But if it does make sense, I'd love to start with Colorado, just because that's how we got connected.
Kurt
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'd reached out to you about that, some of those cutthroat species. Like I said, I had done the Wyoming and the Utah cut slam. And gosh, I can't remember what sort of prompted it, but I was looking at Colorado and I was sort of surprised they didn't have a cut slam. And so I started doing some research and found out about like the Rio Grande and the Greenback and the Colorado Cutthroat, obviously, and started looking into those and found your name popping up with, I think it was the Rio Grande's and what you do with, you do some running in the backcountry, if my memory serves. Is that right?
Katie
Yeah, yeah. So I do the Flyathlon, which is like a fundraiser race, and it benefits Rio Grande Cutthroat. So that's probably how you got my name associated with that species.
Kurt
Okay, yeah. Flyathlon, Andrew Todd, I think. I think he had tried to do some stuff out here in Cache Valley with us. And so, that might have been that common connection. But yeah, so really that project had been in my head for maybe a couple of years. And I was actually supposed to be going to do a pretty big backpack trip this summer for bull trout. And it was going to be a pretty big, big hike. Unfortunately, July 4th, I busted up my toe pretty good. And that, that whole trip got kiboshed with, with that broken foot thing. And so, um, wow, I think it was the week before we ended up leaving. I called up a buddy of mine and said, Hey, I got this thing that I'd like to do in Colorado. I think the timing is good for this. I have a little bit of research that I've done a couple of years previously. You want to go and he's a good friend that luckily he can usually drop things and is usually willing to get away from work. And so with a week's notice we decided to do this Colorado trip for the Rio Grande, the Greenbacks and the Colorado River cuts. So it just, it honestly it just kind of fell into our lap as far as, "Okay, let's go."
Katie
Yeah, what dates did you end up coming out here? Because I remember in one of your emails you were asking about like early June and I had cautioned that, you know, we were still in midwinter conditions in some of the places that I knew you might be going just based on where those species are located. So I remember telling you that if you had the ability to push it back by a couple weeks that you might be better off, but it sounds like you kind of had a window you could go in. up having to go with the original dates you planned even though there was still some snow on the ground?
Kurt
No, we were able to push it back. Like I said, I think it was July 4th that I busted that foot and that's when everything
Katie
Oh, right, right, right.
Kurt
Yep. So, yeah, actually when I emailed you, I was still in the like dreaming about it. That was a year or two, like when might this be able to work kind of thing. And so with the broken foot, all of a sudden it was like, "Okay, we got to switch this up and turn this on and go. And so yeah, I went down to Salt Lake, picked him up, and we headed down through southern Utah. And actually, I'd had a desert species down there. It's called a round-tailed chub. And it had been giving me fits for a while. I probably tried for that for three years and had not been able to make that happen. And so we went down into the desert. And we were there pretty early in the morning and I was able to find one of those fish. And so that was a good omen for the trip to start off with, finally getting that desert species. So that was kind of cool. And then we just started heading towards Colorado. And one of the first places we went just took us right up into the mountains. And honestly, I live in Utah here. I grew up in Salt Lake where we're right up against the Wasatch Front. We've got big mountains. And that first day, all of a sudden I realized, "Wow, Colorado's a little bit different on the mountains." I got a total appreciation for the mountains there and we were going up looking for some greenback on a place that I had heard about and we actually got turned around. I have a Subaru and I thought, "Oh, we can go anywhere we want to." And yeah, it was like, "Okay, we're still 18 miles out. We're not gonna hike in from here. We gotta turn around." And so, yeah, that immediately changed. And that's one of the things I really try to do on these projects is always have backups to the backups. And so, yeah, we headed south, went through that Ouray, Silverton, Durango kind of area and that's where we got the first one was a Colorado cutthroat which we actually have here in Utah but they're a little bit smaller here in Utah. It's a little bit harder to find them. So catching that one first off was pretty cool. We were in an area, and I don't know how you are about river names, but if it's okay, I'm probably not gonna say anything just 'cause I don't wanna be accused of hot spotting or anything like that. But the first place we went, it was very apparent that somebody was doing some habitat restoration, and I have a feeling it was Trout Unlimited just 'cause I looked up some of the stuff we had seen that I had not seen before and that was a lot of vertical post driven into the river and they were catching willows behind those and just creating some complexity to the river. And so that was really cool to see that area and it was freshly done like maybe days before we got there. And so that was kind of cool to see the results of that work.
Katie
Yeah, do you know if those were beaver dam analogs that they were building? Because I think I've seen vertical posts in that context before where they're trying to essentially create beaver dams with them?
Kurt
I assume that's what they are. I'm not a fisheries biologist or hydrologist, so I'm kind of looking from the outside in as an angler. But yeah, with the willow branches and a lot of the vegetation that was either placed there or stacking up against there, I'm assuming that's what they are. And that was certainly the end result that it looked like, is that was the start of this riffle run pool kind of thing. So it looked like that's where they were heading towards.
Katie
And where did you head next and for what species?
Kurt
So after the Colorado cut, we were kind of taking it a little bit easy, rolling through some different areas. And we went up on the Conejos and headed towards some areas for the Rio Grande. And I had worked with a biologist probably last year, trying to understand a little bit more about the Rio Grande, and he had given me a number of samplings, surveys of lakes. And so we were trying to figure out, okay, where's our best shot at getting these where it's within hiking distance of a broken foot, and has a good chance at getting into some, hopefully a little bit bigger Rio Grande's. But again, with that backup of, okay, if this doesn't work out, where are we gonna go? And so we found our lake that we wanted to hit and we set up camp the night before to make that approach to that one. And so we got up fairly early and got, I think that was about a three and a half mile hike and got up into the higher country and lake looked really good. we started walking around it and immediately I saw a fish and I was like, wow, that fish looks a little odd. It wasn't a real big fish. It was very obviously a cutthroat, but he looked like he was swimming with some disability, I guess he had maybe some white fungus on him or something like that. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna let that fish go and walked around and did not see another fish for probably an hour. And in the high country, of course, a little bit of weather started moving in And all of a sudden, we started seeing a lot of fish. And they were a lot of big fish. And unfortunately, they all had that same fungus on them. And the only way I can describe these fish is they were zombie fish. They would barely spook. They didn't look at flies. Even pulling a little bugger in front of them, they didn't react to it. It was kind of disheartening to see. And I guess maybe luckily a storm really came through and pushed us off before we could get really good after those guys, but I just don't think they were eating. But yeah, there was another new respect for Colorado was the storm moving through. It started hailing on us and pretty soon the lighting worked up. And my plan was just to stay up there all day regardless. I mean, I wasn't gonna get pushed off by weather and all of a sudden the lightning really started kicking up and then we were like, okay, it is time to get off this mountain. And we started hiking down the trail and the trail started turning into a river and that was pretty impressive. My fishing buddy was not too keen with me about that and he didn't have a rain jacket with and so he was pretty wet. And I don't know, I had a great time. I was a little disappointed not catching those big Rio grands. But part of these projects is the experience of being out there. And I mean, the smell of the lightning or the electricity in the air, those are the things that really fill your nostrils while you're sitting at home in the winter kind of thing.
Katie
Yeah, I've actually seen that fungus as well on some of the fish out in that area. not that specific, not the specific like river you were fishing, but some of the lakes down that way. I've seen the zombie fish and it was the same thing. We backpacked up in there for three days and I think we got one fish over the course of those three days, but we saw fish the whole time. They were just slowly drifting around like they were in a daze and there was just not much you could do to like snap them out of their trance. It was like disheartening to see.
Kurt
Wow. That's interesting. When I reached out to the biologist, I can't remember what he said the fungus was or what the issue was, but he seemed a little surprised that they didn't eat. So I'm a little heartened to hear that you had a similar experience with the fish. He didn't seem to kind of understand what I was talking about with the zombie fish, and that's the best way to describe it is usually a fish will at least look at a fly or move towards a fly or move away from a fly, and these fish were doing none of that.
Katie
Yeah. Yeah, no, I experienced the same thing you did. It's not just you and not just the area you went to. Unfortunately, I guess, because it's not a good thing that you want, but yeah, I have the same experience as you.
Kurt
Interesting. Yeah, and I want to say that he had talked about it being due to warmer water temperatures. I'm assuming that's what it has to do with, but it's hard to believe that warmer water temperatures at the altitudes we were talking were a function of that, but apparently they are.
Katie
Yeah, I mean, the lake I was at, I don't know the exact elevation, but it was right about a tree line, so I would guess around 11,000 feet, and not that that water can't get warm in the sun, but I mean, there's a lot other places that are way warmer than it, so to only have fungus be growing in these handful of places because they're warmer, it strikes me that if that were the case, then there'd be fungus all over the place in warmer water. But I also have no real idea what I'm talking about with it. I'm just reporting what I've heard and seen. So I'm with you.
Kurt
Yeah, same. But the good news is we had that backup spot. It was actually a river or a small creek nearby. And we were able to find the Rio Grande's in that drainage. And we were able to catch those out of the river. They were obviously smaller than what we were in the lake. But that was really cool to get the Rio Grande in hand. And one of the things that I think is pretty cool about the Rio Grandes is-- and I don't know if this is true when they get to the bigger size that we saw in the lake, but the smaller ones on the river had pretty definitive par marks on them. And I had done a golden trout project a while ago, and golden trout are pretty well known for the par marks that they have. And these Rio Grande's really kind of reminded me of that. And like I said, I don't know if it's their size or if it's kind of unique to the species. But yeah, those were cool. And to catch them in that range, my understanding is they're the southernmost cutthroat. So that was kind of cool, catching those. But yeah, we got finished up with that one and then started coming down the Conejos, which was also a really cool river. And unfortunately, it was, again, another downpour when we were going down there. We got a nice big flat tire. 3/8 bolt went through the tire, which was-- I still have that as a little memento of our trip because it was-- I mean, a 3/8 bolt going into a tire, I just-- I can't believe it, how that would puncture a tire. But yeah, we got laid up for a little bit in the rain, changing out the spare. So that makes it always a little bit interesting. We went into the little town of La Jara and got it fixed there. And we were talking to some of the guys there and asking them about fishing. And they suggested that Great Sand Dunes, the Zapata River. And so we're like, "Okay, we'll try that." We stayed the night and then headed out there. Have you ever been to the Great Sand Dunes?
Katie
I have, yep.
Kurt
Oh, cool. Yeah, we weren't planning on going there. We didn't really know much about it. And we were just amazed by it. We probably spent half a day just at the sand dunes before we actually even got into the river. and we started fishing that Zapata Falls, I guess is what it's called. And it seemed like the water was extremely cold and we could not find a fish in there. So I don't know if that's actually got fish in it or not, but we weren't able to get anything from there. But yeah, then we started heading north for the greenbacks. We'd hoped to get the greenback early in that trip, so we wouldn't have to go quite so far north as the, I guess It's the Lake Zimmerman for greenbacks. And that one I do say because I know the Colorado Fish and Game or Parks and Wildlife has done a lot to reintroduce those up there.
Katie
Yeah, we've been up to Zimmerman Lake, but we haven't had any luck there. We've only been there once. But I remember when I was there, it was a really hot, maybe July afternoon. So not entirely surprising, but we didn't see a single fish, as far as I recall.
Kurt
Got to. Yeah, it was actually pretty chilly when we got there. It was, again, really cloudy. I mean, that's pretty high elevation, too. You're not at Timberline, but you can definitely see it just up above you. And we had brought a paddle board. And I like to use the paddle board to get around in some places that are a little unusual. And in this case, one paddle board is a lot easier to pack in a Subaru than two pontoons or float tubes or something like that. And so we shared the paddleboard too. We were on it at the same time out on the lake, which looks a little odd, but I've actually done quite a bit of that paddleboarding, even doing some rivers, and it is a great tool to get out and explore some new waters and be able to launch from places that you normally can't.
Katie
So did you guys have some luck there?
Kurt
Yeah, we didn't see any fish rising either, but I started throwing on some little bit heavier sinking lines and I eventually picked up a really nice greenback. I was really surprised by the size of it. It was probably in the 14, 15 inch range. And to me, greenback cutthroat I think of as an 8 inch, 10 inch kind of fish. But yeah, we were out on that for a while. I actually let my buddy go out just himself so he could try to maximize his getting the green back. And man, we started having the lightning come again and he came paddling off that real quick. So unfortunately he was not able to get the green back before we got kicked off of that. But he really went along for the adventure, not so much for the species thing. So he was totally okay with that. But yeah, the greenbacks are really cool. I learned a little bit about those while we were out there. And again, to me, that's what's fun about all of these cut slams. I mean, if you look at some of the reason they do these cut slams, at least I know in Utah, is they're trying to educate people about the fish and the habitat they're in and just get that awareness out there. And so that's what this project did for me going after the Colorado cutthroat was learning more about the greenbacks being the eastern most cutthroat it sounds like. And so it's your state fish of Colorado is my understanding.
Katie
Yeah, and as far as I know, they're introducing them to more and more places. At one point it was just like, I think Zimmerman was one of the first. And now there's a handful. I actually found out this summer we went out, you know, I picked a random spot on the map and we went to fish it. And then after the fact, I found out that the cutthroats we caught there may have been greenbacks that, you know, are recently stocked by CPW as one of their newer locations. So I think they're expanding and hopefully the population starts to become viable. I know it's not included in the Western Native Trout Challenge, or it wasn't last time I looked. And part of that was because the population wasn't quite recovered enough for them to want to start sending people out specifically to catch them. So hopefully we're working toward that.
Kurt
Cool. Got you.
Katie
Did you happen to fish the reservoir down at the bottom of Zimmerman?
Kurt
We did not. Like I said, we got kicked off of that, off of Zimmerman. And then, yeah, it was thunder and lightning all around there. And so we were not able to get onto that at all. In fact, I believe we basically headed out as soon as we got pushed off that.
Katie
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, the reservoir down below has some other cutthroats. I'm not sure what subspecies, but also a lot of arctic grayling, mostly arctic grayling down in that reservoir. So it's a fun combination. That's why I was over in that area and why we went up to Zimmerman just to try it out. But we were there for the reservoir and popped up to Zimmerman as kind of a little side thing.
Kurt
Oh, nice. Yeah, Zimmerman was definitely interesting for the cutthroats there. And that would have been cool to see the Arctic grayling. There's not a lot of opportunity for those. So that's cool.
Katie
So tell me about some of your other projects. I've got some ones you listed, desert species, rare species. I don't know what counts in each of these projects, but I'd love to hear about some of the other ones you've come up with. And within each one, I'd also love to hear about like how you go about researching and finding you know where you're gonna go and how you're gonna connect these species together in a trip?
Kurt
You know it's a lot like this Colorado trip. I'll do a ton of research and I try to either have that in the back of my brain or these days I'm trying to write it down and try to kind of have a running catalog of okay this species is here and this is something I'm interested in and And here's the rivers and here's the time of year. And so, I'll probably have 10 projects kind of in the background. And then it's, okay, how do I--like usually something happens where somebody invites me on a trip or my family and I are going somewhere. And I'm like, okay, how can I weave this into somewhere that I'm going? And it's usually with very little warning as far as that. And so that's why some of these have taken me so long is I'm not always able to get the perfect timing on like say that round tailed chub. Twice I'd been there when the river had blown out two days before and it was just a muddy mess. And sometimes things just aren't working out especially with either kind of the more rare species or just species that are hard to catch. Like a sturgeon on the fly is a very difficult fish to catch on the fly. And so I'd probably done that going up to Idaho four or five times and was finally able to make that happen. So yeah, that was kind of a fun one. And my daughter was living last-- No, this year she was in Arizona. And so that project, I'd been down to visit her once before and we had done a little bit of fly fishing for bass in the Salt River there and that was fun. And then I started doing some research on the Gila and the Apache trout. And so I put together a trip with her to go, you know, a three-day trip up into the mountains and to try to get those species. And we were able to get both of those. So that, like I say, it just kind of comes together suddenly. But if there's enough research in the background, which is fairly easy these days with the internet to get all that research and just kind of have it at your fingertips so when the opportunity comes you can make something happen.
Katie
Tell me more about the Gila and the Apache trout. I've been interested in both of those lately, so I'd love to hear your experience going after each one of those.
Kurt
Yeah, those are cool. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I thought both of those were cutthroat trout, and so I was talking with one of the biologists in that area, and I think I might have said, "Oh, yeah, the cutthroat." And he was like, "No, no, no. Those are rainbow subspecies." And I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I had no idea." So again, this is what's so cool about going after these different species is learning more about the ranges that these fish are in and how maybe they evolved and what their subspecies are. Yeah, she was in the Phoenix area. And I just started reaching out to the biologists and asking them where places to catch these fish are. And in some case, they were in native waters. And just like you said about Colorado, some of them were in places that they were essentially trying to reintroduce them. So yeah, I think I was kind of lucky on the Gila trout getting into that one. There was a small river that I was fishing, and I'd been catching like three-inch rainbows. And that's maybe one of the advantages of having the European nymphing background is you can really dial down for the small fish and pick up fish that are just barely touching your fly. And so I was working through this little riffle that led up to a pool. And frankly, the pool was right by a little campground and I had sort of skipped over it thinking, "Oh, it's probably been beat up a little bit." I had walked up through the riffle and I had only got those small rainbows and then threw up into the pool and got this fish and put him in the net really quick. And I was like, "Wow, that is a good fish. And as soon as I picked it up, I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is what I've been after." And so that one was really cool getting that. And my daughter was in the water with me on that one, so that was a lot of fun. The Apaches were a little bit trickier in that some of the upper White Mountains had not opened up yet. And so we had to go into a little bit lower areas to try to find those. And it was a little bit in more, I don't want to say urban, but it was just a little bit, not quite as wild a setting as the Gila trout. And so getting those was a little bit easier because those were, they apparently had been put in there recently. So those were not necessarily wild fish, but there's still the native fish in there. So that was cool.
Katie
Do you mostly try to go to where these fish are native, or is it just more important to you to get the species regardless of whether it's currently residing in its native water?
Kurt
Well, especially with cutthroat, they're generally going to be in their native water. It's a little bit, you know, the bring back the natives thing and finding them in their native water is frankly going to be easier in general. So I guess it's advantageous both ways to find them in their native waters because there's going to be more of them there. And it's also frankly a lot easier to find information about them because Trout Unlimited as well as state departments are trying to bring them back into their native waters.
Katie
Yeah. Yeah, I just wasn't sure if that was part of the goal for you or if you just happened to end up in their native waters because that's where they happen to be. Because I know some people, they want to catch them in their native range specifically and they're not really interested if they're not in their native range.
Kurt
Gotcha. Yeah, I think there's that native trout challenge. I may not be saying the name right, but I really haven't gotten interested in that one. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I like to set up my own project or something. And again, I think that's obviously great and that's where you'll find, I think, more of the fish is in their native range. So it's a win-win on both sides.
Katie
Was anything else included in your desert species or was desert just a Gila and Apache trout?
Kurt
Well, when I say the desert species, I'm looking more at the southern Utah. True desert species were down in the desert and usually those are going to be some type chub species. So that's what those are. Although I could definitely see how you could call the Gila in the Apache Desert. But really where we found both of those was in just beautiful country up high pines. And like I said, a lot of it was still snowed in. So it wasn't as desert-y as you might think in Arizona. We had a great loop that we had created to go through there. And luckily, the very top of that loop had just barely opened. So we were there pretty early. I think it was in April. And you could tell that they had just recently opened the road. So not exactly desert species for those two. And not what you think of when you think of
Katie
Yeah, yeah. Now that you say that, that does ring a bell. I think I knew that they weren't specifically living out in the sand dunes or anything, but just that part of the country strikes me as desert. I think of those as being desert species versus the mountain species up here. But that makes sense that when you say desert, you mean the fish are actually out in the desert.
Kurt
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And there's an amazing number of native species in the deserts of Utah. Some of them are little fish that you may or may not even heard of. I think there's one called a wound fin. And just little species, and some of them are suckers that can get up to 16, 18 inches, final mile suckers. And again, that's what's just so cool about these projects is being out in the desert, red rock, sand desert, with a river flowing through it that, like I said, is more often not muddy from even the slightest rainstorm, but realizing that there's fish species in there that are important to the ecosystem. And that's why the biologists are doing all this work to keep those native species to fill their niche in that environment.
Katie
How hard is it to find information on fishing for these species that aren't your typical game fish that people are going to be going for?
Kurt
It totally depends on their status. Where some of them can be endangered or threatened, the departments are going to keep that information close to their vest, and I won't go after those species typically. But then there's some that they are trying to promote just to get people thinking about different areas as great environments for fish and to help complete that ecosystem by bringing back what we've generally or historically called this trash fish. In the old days people would throw them up on the bank kind of thing and now we're seeing that they're an important part of that ecosystem and we're trying to promote those fish.
Katie
What are some of the species that you would consider part of your hard to catch project?
Kurt
Wow, any of those, the desert species are really the tough ones. Any of the chubs and suckers. Everything I've read about chubs is, "Oh, they eat the same food as trout and they're fairly easy to catch on the fly." I have not found that to be the case. And I guess a lot of that does have to do with the environment that they're in is pretty hostile environment and is always changing from super low flows to being completely washed out. And so I don't think it's necessarily a function of their propensity to take a fly. It's more like the environment that they're in is not as stable as what we think of even in like a free-strand river for trout. So that's what can make them difficult. Others are just difficult for taking a fly. You know, catfish can be a little bit difficult for eating a fly. Sturgeon, obviously, very, very difficult. And of course, you know, fishing is fishing. And so you make all the plans in the world and it just doesn't work out. So that's like, "Okay, I tried that this year and I'm going to probably have to wait another year and watch river flows and see if I can make that happen next year."
Katie
When you're going for some of those harder species, is it difficult to stick with it? Is there any point where you're like, "I don't know if I can get this fish to take a fly and I don't know if it's worth coming back to this area to keep ripping my hair out trying to get this fish"? Are you motivated by the challenge of, this is my fifth time trying and they're still not eating? Like how do you respond to that challenge when it's just feeling kind of hopeless?
Kurt
During the time that it's feeling hopeless, yeah, it can be a little frustrating, especially when it's like, okay, I think I've tried everything and it is time to give this up. I mean, those Rio Grandes, that was really hard to walk away from that. As my friend will tell you with lightning sticking her hair up and I did not want to leave that. But at the same time, not catching them really feels the fire for, "Okay, what didn't work?" And trying to learn more about the species, learn more about the environment of what will make it as good as we can, up our odds for making that happen. And so, there's a lot of times where yeah, I'll walk away with my tail between my legs and think, "Oh man, what do I need to do different? How do I make this work next time?" And really, that's the same feeling I used to get from competition fishing is, you know, I'd get done with a beat or a session on a river and I think I did pretty good. And then I found out that, you know, someone doubled my numbers and I'm like, "Okay, I to figure this out. What did you do on this river? What technique did you use? Did you just have a better session? More than likely, they were doing something different. And that was my feel for learning more. And I think that's how I look at these species or rare fish is just learning more.
Katie
Yeah. Fishing is finicky enough that if you just give up after the first time something doesn't work, then you're not going to be sticking with it for very long. Because I I feel like most of my time is spent trying to figure out what the problem is, not just sitting there enjoying myself. [laughs]
Kurt
Yeah, definitely. But there's also got to be that greater reward of, "Oh, wow, I'm in some place totally new, seeing different water, different scenics than I've ever seen before." That has got to be part of what brings you back or brings you the joy of doing that besides just catching the fish because some of these projects are just setups for failure, quite frankly. And so there's got to be more to it than just catching the fish. And I always want to make sure I'm mindful of that. And it's not hard because the places that we all fish are just gorgeous places.
Katie
Right. It probably wouldn't be very fun if it were a gimme, like too easy. I feel like got to be some level of adversity in there to make it to make accomplishing the goal actually worth something. So yeah, I can I can understand the driving value from, you know, what you're doing the process of it, not just the final outcome.
Kurt
I want to ask
Katie
about the this the sunapi trout, which you had on your list. I know we're not going to talk specifics on it because you said that it's a it's a bit sensitive but I wasn't familiar with it. I did some googling after I saw you mention it and I just wanted to ask you what your experiences with that.
Kurt
Yeah, so that was an interesting one where I was actually looking up on a State Department fish site what kind of fish was in that particular state. And I came across this, I think it's pronounced sun-na-pi trout, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, this has got to be one of those, kind of like a palomino trout, you know, what they call trout back east that's the yellow or golden version of an albino rainbow trout. And I was thinking, "This has got to be a hatchery-created trout," because I'd never heard of this sunapi. And so, like you, I started Googling and started finding out more about it and realized that a char that like all char lives in the coldest of waters. And there's actually some history that it was native back east. And sometime, I think it was during the '50s, there was some stocking of those char to some different lakes because the lakes that they were in back east, they were getting hybridized with lake trout. And so they were starting to lose those. And so they started doing some stocking in high mountain alpine lakes to try to recover that species or at least save the species from that hybridization with the lake trout. And so, yeah, It's a different fish. It can also hybridize with brook trout and so it tends to look a little bit like a brook trout. But they are, I guess the word is morphologically different. They have a much higher scale count. The scales on them are much smaller. And kind of hard to describe how they look different than a brook trout. They're a little bit more drawn out fish. And the colors definitely a little bit different. That's where sometimes just plain luck can help you out. I was actually in a float tube. This is before we'd figured out the paddleboard. We had backpacked into a high alpine lake that reportedly had these. And we were in float tubes and I was tubing around and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I gotta take a bio break. And so, I got out, came back in the float tube and my fly rod was just kind of hanging on the--it just sat across my float tube and I pushed out. And all of a sudden, my fly was stuck on something and I was like, "Oh, crud." And I grabbed my fly rod to get it off the bottom which I thought it was stuck on and I had a fish on and it was my first centipede trout. So, yeah, sometimes just dumb luck is better than all the research
Katie
Yeah, that'd probably take a lot longer, but if you just completed all these challenges by just letting your fly rod sit there in the water while you take a break, you know, you could really lazily work your way through all these projects.
Kurt
Exactly, yeah. So that was a fun one. That was kind of cool.
Katie
Well, just to wrap up, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that you're excited about that, you know, I didn't ask about? I know you had a ton of things written down that we obviously don't have time to cover, But if there's one or two other things that you wanted to mention or talk about before we wrapped up, I just want to give you a chance to do that.
Kurt
You know, like I said, that learning curve is so much fun for wherever some anglers add in their process of fly fishing, whether it's learning how to nymph, learning how to euronymph, or trying different flies, or exploring new water. And yeah, I guess one of the things that I've learned a lot from this last few years is cutthroat and understanding how widespread they are. And it's a lot of fun right now. And I'm not sure if you can tell me your experience with this, but there's so many different cutthroat and it sounds like we're in the middle of this kind of DNA revolution with cutthroat as far as almost re-describing the species and how they're related to each other and how some of them that we thought were related to each other are not. I was doing a bunch of research and I thought I kind of understood how the lineage of these were and the more I started researching it, the less sure I was when I walked away of understanding the species and the lineage of those. And so that was a lot of fun. And I guess, like I say, anybody can always get a little bit deeper into something. And so, yeah, that's the fun part of this whole thing.
Katie
Yeah, I'm definitely in the same camp as you are. The more I can learn about something I'm interested in, I just want to soak it up. And that's, you know, that's partially why I like to talk to people like you, because you know, you've fished for way more species than, or I guess I don't, I don't know, I can't say more, but you know, everyone I talk to has a different experience and a different background and has targeted some species I haven't, and maybe I have that they haven't. So it's just fun to kind of cross paths with people, hear about their experiences and, you know, enrich my future fishing opportunities through what other people have shared with me. And so, yeah, I'm definitely with you there.
Kurt
Yeah, I mean it's funny in a lot of ways, especially fly fishing is such a--like there's a lot of times where I'm fishing by myself or just one friend. And so trying to get that crossing of ideas can be a little bit difficult. And so I've always taken the attitude, during competition I can learn from anybody. And that goes down to going and looking at a lake that we're going to be fishing in a competition and asking bait fishermen along the bank, "What are you using? What depth are the fish at?" There's always something to learn because this whole thing is never static. And that's what drives my love for this, I guess, sport that we call it or this hobby or this passion of fly fishing. So, yeah, thanks for letting me share. And I love learning things, so I'm happy to learn from other people.
Katie
Yeah, well, thank you for reaching out and for keeping in touch. I was, you know, sometimes people reach out and I expect not to hear from them again. So when you reached out and told me you were successful in Colorado, that was just great to hear. And I hope to keep in touch and let me know if you're ever back in this area and you're looking for other places to go, I'd be happy to steer you in the right direction. But thank you for taking the time today. This was a lot of fun.
Kurt
All right, Katie, well, I appreciate it and appreciated the information. Yeah, you were part of that research project, So I really appreciate it. And it was, it was ultimately successful. So thank you.
Katie
All right. That's a wrap. Uh, 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. Um, you'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. Uh, 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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