By Scott Christy
TU's Tom Reed with a Colorado River cutthroat caught from Fish Creek in the Wyoming Range.
What’s more fun than catching one trout? Catching four trout.
What’s cooler than catching just any four trout? Catching four native subspecies of cutthroat trout in one state in their native range.
How could this get any better? Catching the four native subspecies of cutthroat trout in Wyoming with Wyoming Trout Unlimited volunteers.
Wyoming Trout Unlimited still has few spots left on their annual Cutt-slam Fundraiser coming up Aug. 16-19, and you could be lucky enough to join them on the adventure. All proceeds from the fundraiser will benefit coldwater fisheries in the Cowboy State.
Back in 1996 Wyoming Game and Fish created the Cutt-slam program to highlight Wyoming’s unique asset–it is home to conservation populations of four of the fourteen subspecies of native cutthroat trout found in the West. To complete the program, anglers must catch the Yellowstone, Bonneville, Colorado River, and Snake River Finespot
Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat from Greys River.
cutthroat trout somewhere in their native basins. Completing the Cutt-slam is no small task, as most of the remaining cutthroat conservation populations live in the mountains of western Wyoming. To date 892 anglers have succeeded in receiving their official Cutt-Slam certificate and Wyoming Trout Unlimited is hoping to help add to that number. In addition to chasing down elusive fish, participants are also able see the concrete rewards of the vast amount of on-the-ground coldwater conservation field work that TU has accomplished in Wyoming.
This last year Colin Kearns of Field and Stream completed his Cutt-slam with TU staffer Steven Brutger. He summed his experience up in the current issue of Field and Stream.
To become one of the lucky anglers this year taking part in Wyoming Trout Unlimited’s Cutt-slam Fundraiser, contact Scott Christy at (307) 332-7700 ex: 12 or schristy@tu.org.
What could be better?
Scott Christy works for Wyoming Trout Unlimited and is based in Lander.
By Walt Gasson July 17, 2012 - 12:00 pm
We’ve got three Cutt-Slams in our family, and hope to add two more this year. This is a fabulous program to promote cutthroat trout conservation. It’s also a great way to get kids involved. Our seven year old grand-daughters will be fishing for Colorado, Bonneville and Snake River cutts in August!
By “Itu’s Bones” Finalist in Film Festival, Cutthroat Grand Slam, The Great “Rod or Reel” Debate | MidCurrent July 27, 2012 - 5:44 am
[...] a hierarchy of coolness, Scott Christy writes about the Cutthroat grand slam fundraiser for Wyoming Trout Unlimited. And a bonus of the program is that “In addition to chasing down [...]