![]() Action starts in mid-April on lower stretches, fly-fishing with standard nymphs drfted below strike indicators while keeping an eye peeled for rising fish on warmer days. Of the many Idaho Westslope fisheries, the Lochsa River between Lolo Pass, Montana, and Lowell, Idaho (where it is joined by the Selway River, another fine Westslope water), offers consistent fishing success on Westslope cutts. Average fish measure 12 to 14 inches with exceptional specimens rarely exceeding 19 inches. Westslopes wear small spots situated toward the tail, with no spots on their pectoral fins, and are generally more silvery-green in color than other cutthroat species. They have also fared better than most cutthroat subspecies, occupying 33,500 miles, or 59 percent, of historical habitat. The Westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi) is the most geographically widespread of the inland cutthroats, native to streams and lakes in the upper Columbia River basin (Idaho and Montana), Methow River and Lake Chelan drainages (Washington), John Day River drainage (Oregon), headwaters of the South Saskatchewan River (Montana), and the upper Missouri River basin (Montana and Wyoming). ![]() The several cutthroat subspecies eventually received individual names, and anglers, like bird watchers, began to collect life lists of the species they had caught. ![]() ![]() When Europeans arrived in the West there was only one trout, the cutthroat - more correctly, many subspecies of cutthroat trout.ĭerived from a base species, these trout eventually became split into geographically isolated habitats during the last Ice Age and evolved into unique subspecies showing distinctive physical traits and coloration, but all wearing distinctive, bright namesake slashes beneath each gull plate. ![]()
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