The Greenback Cutthroat season has come and gone in Colorado. I finally visited a lake I knew had these Cutthroat and luckily found them in the inlet stream in abundant numbers to allow for photography. To get to them I had to hike into the Neota Wilderness, a pretty strenuous hike with wetsuit and camera. The water temperature was 5 degrees C, 41 F.
The spawning run was in full swing the last few days of June and the first three days of July. After that, it was as if someone flipped a switch and they were gone.
Small shallow inlet streams allow one to lay on the bank and reach out guessing at the framing in my Nikon AW1.
Here is the result:
[ATTACH]A[/ATTACH]
And a photo of the female or hen digging her redd or nest:
[ATTACH]B[/ATTACH]
This is the only endemic trout in Colorado.
The EXIF selection does not let me select the correct camera and lens. I used the Nikon AW1 with 11-27.5 Nikkor zoom lens. Post processing was done in Photoshop CC. The Nikon has an underwater white balance setting that I change from 4300 K to 39p0 K to obtain a more accurate color to my eye.