Article by Payton Skidmore
Every year I ask myself how I can top the previous. It’s more or less a little self-competition I don’t put too much thought into. But 2025 was a year filled with achievements that were once a pipe dream for me. I took tenkara rods to six new states to target species of trout completely foreign to me and many other anglers. Tenkara for many is a fundamental of a lost heritage, an ease of fly fishing, or just a fun portable way to change things up from their conventional practices. For me? Tenkara gave me the key to unlocking the door to an obsession with native trout and char and eventually in time, the greatest fly fishing adventure in the world: The Western Native Trout Challenge.
While some states have their own internal cutthroat slam, native fish slam, or wild trout challenges, the WNTC envelopes around the 21 species of trout and char in all 12 western states. The idea is to travel to these states, catch and release 18 native fish with a picture; submit them when you hit various milestones (there are three total), and enjoy the adventure of a lifetime! All of this while avoiding repeat species in different states; not too hard with 21 species to choose from! This may seem like a tall order for any angler to accomplish but take comfort in its lifetime status with virtually no expiration so you can take as long as you want! The Western Native Trout Initiative, which hosts the WNTC, has contributed millions of dollars to the conservation and preservation of our native fish.
Expert Caster, the first milestone of the WNTC, is to catch 6 species in 4 states and my 2025 goal was to complete this. The tenkara rod of choice for most of the adventure was my trusty ol’ DRAGONtail Mizuchi. Its triple zoom features and crispy fast action were perfect for most native trout streams in the west with the constant brushy streamside vegetation. I chose my home state of Utah for the Colorado River cutthroat and Bonneville cutthroat trout and although Utah deserves its own segment in this story, I confess it’s all too familiar to me and the highlights of my adventure are beyond my home state.
- Wyoming: I chose Wyoming for the Yellowstone cutthroat. It felt fitting and was my final fish caught for my Wyoming Cutt Slam adventure and ultimately the first fish I introduced to the WNTC. With the 400cm DRAGONtail Ragnarok in my hand, I coaxed the full strain of YCT to the net and admired the grizzly bear country around me. Miles away from civilization, I truly felt part of a lost frontier.
- Nevada: Nevada’s state fish is the Lahontan cutthroat. Known to be the largest cutthroat trout species, I chose a residential stream variant in the northern desert. It was the only WNTC trip I took solo and like a biblical plague, the desert was infested with millions of Mormon crickets. As I approached the stream with my Mizuchi, I watched endless waves of crickets floating downstream with no visible trout action. My fly choice was a conscious choice to avoid the hatch, an assassin ant pattern. A few casts later, I was holding my first LCT!
- Idaho: Idaho was a trip of multiple “firsts”. My first trout bumming experience with no particular water in mind would yield my first native Columbia River Redband, first Westslope cutthroat, and my first bull trout in three very different drainages. The primary target was bull trout; a char known to be extremely migratory and possessing a ferocious appetite. We found a dream creek with an all-you-can-catch action! Due to an alarming amount of deadfall, we chose the Wasatch Tenkara Darth Quattro for tight spaces. Over 200 fish were landed on this trip but it wouldn’t come without its respective grind. On the first day only 10 bull trout were landed among 100 rainbow trout. The rainbows were not native.
- Montana: Montana is generally the least popular state in the WNTC. It is home to native Arctic grayling, lake trout, bull trout, Yellowstone, and Westslope cutthroat. The state’s prudence to protect native species welcomes the challenge but limits anglers only to the Westslope and Yellowstone cutthroat. More specifically in stocked lakes or ponds. We found a nice low elevation mountain lake perfect for float tubing. My first fish was a Westslope cutthroat on my conventional fly rod and my last was the same species from the Wasatch Tenkara Akai Samurai, thanks to a friend who let me borrow his rod during a peak moment of fast fishing. We wouldn’t let these limitations sully our trip and would welcome a bull moose crossing our lake at sunset! We also took a small detour for native grayling.
- Arizona: Driving 10 hours to the Apache National Forest was mostly underwhelming and geographically boring, but when a forest pops out, it really POPS! At no moment did I recognize I was climbing the desert elevations to 10,000’ and in the blink of an eye, I was standing in alpine country filled with hundreds of elk, tall pine trees, and the Little Colorado River which homes the Apache trout. The Mizuchi would be my rod of choice again for this trip with the uncertainty of stream conditions in the Autumn months. My first Apache came after a multi hour grind of a chilly morning and picky fish, but when I held the little guy in my hand, I thought about the challenges of recent wildfires, droughts, and the constant perils that threaten the existence of Apache trout. Though through it all, they were removed entirely from the endangered species list for the first time since 1967 in 2024. That’s the power of conservation!
- New Mexico: Likely the last state anyone thinks for premium trout fishing. So naturally I chose one of the rarest species in the entire country. The Gila trout is a golden bodied and fine spotted trout living in the canyons of the desert. With the Apache trout still fresh in my mind the day before, I took my Mizuchi and an Adams fly into arguably the coolest hiking experience of my life. My first Gila trout would come much faster than my Apache experience but the catch rates stayed pretty similar. After years of intense fishing in the west, my first rattlesnake experience came from this trip. No one was harmed.
I ended 2025 with seven states, and eight different species caught. All on various tenkara rods. The forests were “oooh” and the mountains were “awh”! Local foods were eaten, roughly 5,000 miles were traveled, laughs were shared, and anxiety was induced! I did complete Expert Caster, and I have five more states to visit and ten species to catch to become a Master Caster. Will the rest also be on tenkara? That Eagle Lake rainbow might be hard, but I plan to try!
Payton Skidmore is an avid Utah tenkara angler. Follow his Skiddy Fishing channel on YouTube.
This article originally appeared in the 2026 print issue of Tenkara Angler magazine.
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