For our last day of fishing we opted to gain some elevation and head into the mountains. The target wasn’t going to be coastal cutthroat today, but rather coastal rainbow trout. We were unlikely to run into any big steelhead, but were told there would be resident fish in this stream. I don’t know that I’ve ever caught rainbow trout in their native range, I’ve caught them pretty much everywhere else that I’ve fished for trout, so today was the day.
The river we fished had a trail that ran alongside it which made access pretty easy – we just parked at the trailhead and hiked as far as we were willing and then got in and started fishing. The river was crystal clear and the water was super cold – much colder than the last few days of fishing. It also had more volume than I was expecting, which was actually pretty nice, but made crossing it a little dicey in spots. It was a wide enough stream where Blake could stick to one side and I to another and we could kind of work it together as we moved upstream – really an ideal width.
It didn’t take long to start catching fish and the first fish I caught was not actually a coastal rainbow, but another species entirely. As I’ve learned from Gary Marston, it was a southern subspecies of Dolly Varden. Not what we came for, but a delightful bycatch! My first Dolly and really my first char of any kind from the Pacific. Pretty sweet to find them here as well. I followed it up with a tiny rainbow and then the small one you see photographed above.
The stream had a lot of elevation gain in this section so there was quite a bit of fast water with intermittent pools and long runs. It was very productive water – a lot of fun to fish. The rainbows were gorgeous – and yes, they did remind me of the wild rainbows we have in North Georgia. These rainbows had more black pepper sprinkles on them though.
We fished dry dropper rigs and ended up catching a few more Dolly Varden on nymphs as we made our way upstream, but rainbow trout were definitely the predominate species on both flies. It was a great river to end our trip on – such a beautiful place to fish.
The Olympics were a great destination to go bluelining. I may have to make it back up to do some steelhead or salmon fishing in the future. Not enough time to do it all, and we barely scratched the surface of the Olympic Peninsula. We were able to catch a few different species on our trip and I got to see another part of our great country that I hadn’t before. I’m slowly checking off states and species in the Western Native Trout Challenge. The WNTC has taken me to some awesome places that I likely would not have visited, or at least fished, had it not been a thing. I’m glad we gave the Wyoming Cutt Slam a shot so many year’s ago, it’s been a lot of fun participating in the many other slams and challenges we’ve come across as states and organizations realize how much fun these programs are, and how important they are to the education and conservation of native fish species across the country.
The salmonids are in family Salmonidae, which has 10-11 genera that is divided into 3 subfamilies; Coregoninae(whitefish), Thymallinae(grayling), and Salmoninae(char/trout/salmon). Living in the Southeast you have access to a very limited amount of salmonids and I’ve caught the 3 that occur in Georgia. The brook trout is the only native trout species in Georgia and it is actually a char.
Updated, December 2025: I made my first trip out West in September of 2012 to Colorado and caught several “greenback” cutthroat trout in Rocky Mountain National Park – or what were considered greenback trout at the time. Made another trip out West in August of 2013 to Teton and Yellowstone National Parks where I picked up another cutthroat species and mountain whitefish. In August of 2015 I was able to complete the Wyoming Cutt Slam, picking up Wyoming’s four native cutthroat species (they do have a fifth, the Westslope, that is not required for the slam). In July of 2017 I completed the Utah cutthroat slam, which didn’t necessarily add any new species to the list, but I was able to add Bonneville cutthroat outside of the Bear River drainage and Bear River cutthroat, which some consider genetically distinct. In June of 2021 I made it out to Arizona and New Mexico to catch Apache and Gila trout in their native range. In August of 2022 I made it up to northern Idaho and caught several Westslope cutthroat in their native range. In July of 2023 I made a northern New Mexico/southern Colorado trip and caught lots of Rio Grande cutthroat in their native range. Finally, in August of 2025 I made it out to the Olympic peninsula of Washington and caught coastal rainbow trout in their native range, coastal cutthroat, southern Dolly Varden, as well as the genetically distinct Lake Crescent cutthroat trout.
Dr. Robert Behnke is the man when it comes to salmonid knowledge. Pick up his book if you want to learn more about this particular family, “Trout and Salmon of North America”. Another great resource is Gary Marston’s Native Trout Fly Fishing blog, he has a Trout and Salmon species page with pictures and information of all those that he has caught (which may be all that are found in the U.S.). Gary’s trip reports are a good read as well, he has had some epic road trips to catch trout in their native range.
Trout found in the Southeastern United States
Salvelinus fontinalis – Brook trout
Brook trout are the first native trout species I ever encountered as they do live in Georgia.
Salmo trutta – Brown trout
Brown trout are not native to North America.
Oncorhynchus mykiss – Rainbow trout
The first trout species I ever caught, happy to say that I have now caught them in their native range too!
According to Wikipedia, the coastal cutthroat trout occurs in four distinct forms. A semi-anadromous or sea-run form is the most well known. Freshwater forms occur in both large and small rivers and streams and lake environments – pictured above is the stream resident freshwater form. The historic native range of the coastal cutthroat trout extends south from the southern coastline of the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska to the Eel River basin in Northern California.
Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii crescentii – Coastal cutthroat trout – Lake Crescent form
At the time this fish was considered a greenback, but it’s more likely that it isn’t after genetic research determined that the true greenback was limited to only one stream, outside of it’s native range, in Colorado. Work has been done to re-establish populations throughout it’s native range and hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to fish for a true greenback cutt. Their historic range is pretty much in the state of Colorado on the Front Range, with some watersheds slipping into Wyoming. They are found in the headwaters streams of the South Platte and Arkansas River drainages.
Oncorhynchus clarki pleuriticus – Colorado River cutthroat trout
Their historic range is headwaters streams in the Green and Colorado Rivers, as far south as the San Juan River, west of the Continental Divide. They are currently limited to a few small headwater streams of the Green and upper Colorado rivers in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, including the Escalante River drainage in southern Utah.
Oncorhynchus clarkii virginalis – Rio Grande cutthroat trout
Their historic range is headwater streams in the Pecos and Rio Grande watersheds in Colorado and New Mexico.
They are found in the headwaters streams of the Bear River. No range map was given from NatureServe or the USGS for the Bear River cutthroat trout, but they are native to the Bear River and it’s tributaries, including Bear Lake.
Their historic range is the Yellowstone River drainage in Montana and Wyoming and the Snake River drainage in Wyoming and Idaho. Their current range overlaps with that of the Finespot in the Snake River drainage above Shoshone Falls.
Oncorhynchus clarkii behnkei – Finespotted Snake River cutthroat trout
Their historic range overlaps the Yellowstone cutt in the states of Wyoming and Idaho. They are found in the headwaters streams of the Snake River, particularly the South Fork.
According to Wikipedia, Westslope cutthroat trout are native in northern Idaho’s and British Columbia’s upper Columbia River system and northern tributaries of the Snake River. East of the Continental Divide in Alberta and Montana, Westslope cutthroat trout are native to the upper Missouri, Milk and North Saskatchewan rivers. In Montana, the historic range extended east to the mouth of the Judith River and south into the Madison, Gallatin and Jefferson river systems. Isolated populations of Westslope cutthroat trout exist in upper tributaries of the John Day River in the Strawberry Mountains of Oregon and Columbia River tributaries along the eastern side of the Cascade Range in Washington. Isolated populations exist in the Fraser River basin in British Columbia.
Other Native Salmonids
Salvelinus malma – Southern Dolly Varden
According to Gary Marston, the Southern subspecies of Dolly Varden are native to coastal watersheds from the Susitna River, Alaska south to the Quinault River, Washington.
Mountains to Marsh 