It was a nice fish, you can only keep two fish and Cutthroat have to be over 14". I have a mark on my fly rod 14" from the butt, this fish was beyond it about 1.5", so around a 15.5" fish. The Northfork is world class fly fishing. Kelly Creek feeds into it at the bottom of Black Canyon and it is very well known for fly fishing as well. Kelly Creek is all catch and release.
Over the years I've found several patterns that will commonly get fish to hit, a mosquito is a solid choice most years. Renegades, a hopper, or a Royal Wolf are decent too. Figuring out the hatch and matching it is far and away the best fishing. When there is a hatch you can get a few fish to take a mosquito or other pattern, but you'll see a lot of fish come up like they are going to hit it but then turn away. When that happens a lot you need to figure out the hatch and match it, they just won't take other patterns hardly at all. Honestly my favorite method is to hop on the atv and take a spin up the road in the evening and then check out the bugs when I hit a swarm.
This year you could entice a strike all day, but evening was far and away the best. They can be very finicky and want something different from year to year. This year I really didn't observe any main hatch, but they were hitting a hopper pattern fairly well. Got a few on a mosquito and a renegade. Around day 3 I figured out that the bigger Cuts were feeding in some pretty swift water in the evening and I got into better sized fish after that. I'd been catching quite a few in the 9"-10" range, the fast water ones were a much better 12" average.
It is fun to figure out what they're wanting. I've had years where they wouldn't touch anything bigger than a size #20...not fun to try to follow a tiny fly like that in ripples! I have to just watch the area around my fly line and set the hook if I see a fish rise anywhere near lol. Let alone trying to get your tippet through the eyelet when tying on a new one. I've had other years where they are really spooky and you had to run a minimum of 10' of tippet, they wouldn't hit if your fly line was anywhere near the fly. Warm water years you can't get them to hit a dry fly and you have to run a sculpin type wet fly and strip it back to you. Many times we fish Kelly Creek, the Northfork in Black Canyon before it merges with Kelly Creek (much narrower before Kelly joins it), and then the main Northfork after Kelly Creek joins it. What works in one doesn't work in the other two, very funny to me. The last time I fished all three you had to run a stone fly in Black Canyon, a yellow Humpy on Kelly Creek, and a mosquito on the main to get decent fishing.
