Winter Sea-Runs

First semester of school is over with and now is the time I get to be home for a little while. Around here in western Washington, there is one fishery that continues to go on strong during the winter months. That is the sea-run cutthroat fishery. After being gone for three and a half months I had no real idea of where the fish might be. There were a couple things to keep in mind.

First, in the Puget Sound, there are early and late entry cutthroat. This is where they go up the rivers to spawn and come back down in the early summer. The early entry fish tend to be further up north in the sound. The late entry fish tend to be the south sound and hood canal fish. This meant that I would be focusing much of my efforts in the deep south sound. 

Second, as these fish are one of the few opportunities that can be pretty hot action, there is also a lot of pressure on them. Particularly on nice days and especially with how many people are constantly at certain locations. Take Purdy for example. The least kept sea-run location in the entire sound. On the days I stopped by there, there was a minimum of four other people on the beach. I wouldn't call these fish spooky but when you have that many people beating the water, its time to move on. 

The current consensus may be that the fishing is slow but I did not find that to be the case. Once I got away from people and into the south sound, there were plenty of fish to be found. Ranging from 8-17". Most of these were still chrome colored however one of the larger fish caught was starting to show its spawning colors. The distinct yellow hue that takes over these cutthroat pre and post spawn is absolutely beautiful.

So in short, this is an excellent time of the year to go chase those sea-run cutthroat trout.