Cuttie Quest Complete!

Cruiser.  Zoom in a bit left of center. 

 I happened to run into a fellow fly fisherman last night who showed me a video of a very large cutthroat trout she'd caught at Poage Lake where I'd been just a few days ago.

I determined to go back and give it another try.  Technically,  I caught a cuttie at Shaw Reservoir  on Monday but 4 inches was not what I had in mind.

As I got to Poage this morning I immediately saw a pretty big trout slowly cruising the shallows so I frantically set up and cast a red Humpy.  No interest from the cruiser.  Big fuzzy stimulator?  Yawn.  Elk Hair caddis with a nymph dropper?  Cruiser, swam right up to it, opened his mouth, my heart pounding, and simply turned away!  Several more times I presented the same duo but cruiser just made more teasing approaches.  Lady fisherman got her cuttie with a nymph but cruiser ignored mine entirely. 

He then started sipping midges (tiny bugs) right in front of me.   I took the nymph off and replaced it with a midge.  I cast this duo just a few feet from shore.  Once again,  cruiser sauntered up to the elk hair, turned it down and casually opened his mouth for my midge.  Soooo hard to wait for the critical milliseconds for him to actually have it in his mouth without pulling it away too soon.  Wait too long and he'd spit it out.

BAM!!! Fish on.  Cruiser was just three feet in front of me when I set the hook.  There was an explosion of water, flashing silvery and bown as the fight took place.  I landed him in less than a minute and was ecstatic to see an 18 inch cuttie!  Took pic. Got him back into the water and watched him swim away.  That's a genuine bucket list item now, checked.