Tom - Where do you fish? Ever get to the Au Sable in Michigan?

I have fished across the country from coastal cutthroats in Oregon to Atlantic salmon on the Miramichi in New Brunswick in Canada. I take three trips a year to Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. My favorite trips are to the Rockies in Colorado. I spend five days alone hiking and fishing alpine lakes above12,000 feet for the beautiful greenback cutthroat trout, once listed as an extinct species.

I navigate with a topo and navigational compass. I plot my route using National Geographic software and print out my coordinates using waterproof paper.

There is nothing better than fishing solo for the greenbacks with the nearest human being about 10 miles away. I am addicted to the high peaks, greenbacks and the many mountain sheep I see each day. They rarely if ever see a human and don't mind your presence unless you try to get too close to them. During the rut, I have taken pictures of rams fighting. Its an awesome experience.

My home river in the West is the North Platte in Wyoming and in the east the Housatonic which is 20 minutes from my Pawling NY home. I have never, unfortunately, fished the Au Sable, a classic and storied trout river. Some day I hope to fish that historic river.

Tom, have you read any of John Gierach's fly fishing stories? I'm reading his "Death, Taxes and Leaky Waders" right now. Good stories. He lives in Colorado I think and fishes there a lot and shoots a Parker, at least for doves.

Tom, I have spent many a day fishing the Housy. Love that river....

Yeah, Gierach shoots a Parker. I've told this story here before but I like him and his style so I'll tell it again.

He drove into a smallish but boutique-ish Colorado town and pulled up to the curb in his old truck. He got out and began walking toward a store when a young woman confronted him saying that she wasn't comfortable with that shotgun in the back window of his truck. He turned to face her and in his no-nonsense style said "That's no shotgun lady - that's a Parker." And he turned around and went into the store.





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Tom, that looks like a caddis pupa imitation stuck in that greenback's dorsal fin....





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I've met John Gierach a few times. He is a friend of my close fly fishing buddy who lives in Estes Park, Colorado, John's stomping grounds. John has given me some his books inscribed to me and talked about getting together with our cane rods and fishing the Big Thompson river, a favorite of his and mine.

I stay at my buddies house when I do my high peak trips. I usually fish a couple of days with him on private water to acclimate to the altitude. Then I'm off for five days on the high peaks and fish one day with him when I return.

Acclimating a couple of days helps, but I always get altitude sickness when I climb to about 10K feet. When I cramp up and start to ejection vomit, I lay down where I am and sleep to the next day. I'm too sick to put up my little one man tent. I'm better after a nights sleep and then can continue my trek. I takes me three days at altitude before I feel normal.

Dean, you have an amazing eye for detail but its not a caddis pupa. Insects do not live above the tree line. But the winged insects get brought up to altitude on the thermals from below and this is what the greenbacks feed on. They cruise close the bank picking off the insects.

You fish for them by standing in one spot and then casting ahead of them when they swim by. You never have long to wait since the greenbacks are very plentiful in the few alpine lakes where they still exist. Virtually any dry fly will work. They don't spook when they see you but they scatter quickly if you put a line over them. They have only about three months to feed before ice in so they are not selective at all and will rise to any well placed fly.

I take no food with me and limit my backpack to 30 pounds. Every ounce matters when you are climbing to altitude. I eat brook trout that I catch at lower altitudes and bring five days worth to altitude with me. I don't like killing them but I have no choice. For a green, I boil the leaves from the green clasping leaved twisted stalk plant. It is wonderful eating and tastes like a cross between swiss chard and cucumber. I eat well.

Here is a brookie from one of my lower altitude beaver ponds. They are beautiful and incredibly plentiful.

The picture didn't upload so I'll try again and also include a picture of a greenback from an outflow creek. The creek greenbacks are much smaller but they are especially beautiful.

I've got to go to my Prosek book on trout to see how he paints the greenback. The one in your picture has a tail more like an adult "square tail" salvelinus fontinalis than other cutthroats and rainbows of the Western Slope that I have seen... Interesting... but I'm not questioning your identification of that greenback cutthroat.





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I don't know if Prosek has actually trekked to their environs and painted from a real greenback rather than his impression of what they look like.

That is a greenback for sure Dean. They only exist in about a 20 square mile area of the Colorado Rockies and above about 12K feet. There are no other trout existing in these environs..

I know cutthroats intimately. I have been on a quest to catch all of the remaining cutthroat sub-species that still exist. I only fish for them in their native drainages and each fish has to be a true aboriginal wild fish. I have five subspecies to my credit and only need the lahontan and Bonneville to complete the slam. I plan to add them this year.

It is interesting to note that each separate greenback alpine lake has its own color scheme on the trout. They look a bit different depending on which alpine lake they come from. Creek fish look different also.

The greenback male spawning color is almost red and is spectacular. I'll have to scale down some pictures and post them for you.