Hardy cutthroat trout offer good fishing locally
April 6, 2009
By Dallas Cross
Cutthroat trout, spunky members of the trout family, have been native to western America for thousands of years. They have long provided a tasty meal cooked on campfires and wood stoves.There are many subspecies of cutthroat trout in the Rocky Mountains and western rivers. We have stocked some Washington lakes with Lahontan cutthroat, native to Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. There are also Westslope cutthroat trout native to our beaver ponds, lakes and streams.
The sea-run or coastal cutthroat trout live and spawn in rivers, streams and lakes that usually have access to salt water. Local sea-runs forage along shores in the salt waters of Puget Sound.
An unusual characteristic of coastal or sea-run cutthroats is their unpredictable life cycle. They may live part of their adult life in salt water and spawn in fresh water — and then produce offspring who live their entire life in fresh water, like Lake Sammamish.
All cutthroat spawn in creeks on very shallow gravel beds, away from competing species, such as steelhead.
Although venturing out to salt water seeking more plentiful food gives some cutthroat a growth advantage over their stay-at-home relatives, this travel takes its toll. Biologists have found that spawners from salt water shorten their life spans by as much as 20 percent each time they make the salt-fresh water transition.
Some cutthroat have been designated as a threatened species, so read regulations carefully to determine whether to keep or release. Today, cutthroat caught in Puget Sound must be released, but those caught in lakes Sammamish or Washington may be kept, within limits.
The stomach contents of cutthroat in Lake Sammamish show biologists that they mainly eat aquatic insects and small invertebrates until they’re about 12 inches long.
After exceeding that size, they switch to a diet mainly of minnows, preferring small salmon and kokanee fry residing in the lake. Cutthroat trout have become one of the dominant predators of salmon fry in Lake Sammamish, replacing the Northern pike minnow in this role.
You can fly fish for “cutts” in the lake but you need to find actively surfacing fish that are feeding on chronomid or midge insect hatches. And as the stomach contents predict, you generally connect with smaller-sized fish with insect-imitating flies.
Our lake cutts are quite sensitive to warm and cold water temperatures, and also to low oxygen content.
Thus, you must troll deeper, 15 feet to 30 feet, to bring lures within feeding range. Small-needle fish lures, minnow imitators, spoons and even worms on a wedding-ring lure will work. Vary your depth and speed until you get a strike.
I used to be the camp planner for a group who went to British Columbia every year for a week in June to fly fish Lake HiHium for Kamaloops rainbow trout. Wayne Crill started this annual exposition.
In the glow of Coleman lanterns, during fish story time in the evening, I noticed that Crill had another curious metal button on the crown of his fishing hat. I remarked that they seemed to increase in number each year. Wayne informed me they were Field and Stream Magazine annual awards for catching the largest cutthroat trout in the state.
The next February, I caged a fishing trip on Lake Washington with Crill and his son in their boat. Crill’s method was to use a very small fly-rod flatfish with trout coloration and troll 20 feet deep at a speed where there was moderate pulsing action from the size 00 dodger flasher hooked about 24 inches in front of the flatfish.
We caught some nice cutts while Crill regaled us with stories of occasional hook ups to something big in the lake that just kept on running until break off.
I have fished Lake Washington since then, catching a large cutt or two on occasion. Curiously, none reached the size with which Crill won his awards, but he may not have told me everything. He can no longer fish, but his generosity of angling experience and of fellowship, is alive in others, as it should be.
Reach Dallas Cross at FishJournal@aol.com.
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