Utah Cutthroat Slam Raises over $100K

Photo: Yellowstone National Park/Flickr

The Utah Cutthroat Slam has raised over $100,000 in funding, per a press release from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR). The Cutthroat Slam is a fishing challenge launched in 2016 that requires anglers to catch all four subspecies of cutthroat trout in their native drainage throughout Utah. That includes the Yellowstone cutthroat in northwestern Utah, the Colorado River cutthroat, the Bonneville cutthroat, and the Bear Lake/Bear River cutthroat.

Anglers pay a $20 registration fee and receive a certificate and coin once they finish the Slam. That fee goes towards conservation projects geared specifically to cutthroat trout.

“When we launched the program in 2016, the main goal was to educate the public about Utah’s only native trout and the historic ranges they inhabited,” Utah Cutthroat Slam Program Director for Utah Trout Unlimited Brett Prettyman said. “The other focus was providing anglers an opportunity to explore new fisheries with family and friends by providing a challenge that would take them places they likely never considered. We thought it could also prove a way to raise some extra money for cutthroat conservation work. Reaching this milestone of $100,000 raised is truly icing on the cake for us.”

In addition to raising $100,000 for conservation funding, the Slam has been completed 1,464 times since 2016.

“We are so grateful to the many anglers who participate and help fund cutthroat trout restoration in Utah,” DWR Sportfish Coordinator Trina Hedrick said. “These projects are crucial in helping restore our native cutthroat trout throughout the state and wouldn’t be possible without this funding. We also appreciate our partners, Utah Trout Unlimited, and others involved in these important efforts.”

Since the Slam’s inception in 2016, it has funded 25 cutthroat conservation projects. 16 of those have been completed to date. Some of the funding went to help restore habitat on the Lower Beaver River in south-central Utah, flood mitigation and habitat restoration on Clear Creek near Richfield, and a telemetry project that looked at migration patterns of Bonneville cutthroat in Chalk Creek.