Hunting for native trout in the saltwater.

After my trip to Oregon searching for Alvord Cutthroat, I had not been able to free up my schedule for any fishing my trip to Oregon until this past Sunday when I finally found myself with a few hours free. Fishing for native Coastal Cutthroat in the waters of the Puget Sound has always been one of my favorite things to do, so I called up my friend Luke Filmer (owner of Blackwater Fish Replicas) to see if he was free. It turned out that he was and the two of us to headed out to one of our favorite local beaches. 

The tides for the day weren't ideal, but the weather was beautiful and it would be great to get out on the water regardless of the fishing. When we got to the beach, the wind was howling,, which certainly wasn't ideal. We figured that would just have to push through the wind and started off of a point that usually draws in some migrating Coho Salmon.  However, the combination of seaweed and wind was just a bit too much to deal with, so we worked our way around to the other side of the point in search of some more sheltered and less seaweed infested waters. As we started working down the beach fish started showing signs of their presence; one fining on the surface here, another jumping there, and finally a tug on the end of my line. Unfortunately this fish didn't stay on long, but while I was fighting it another grabbed Luke's fly and he got a nice 12" Cutthroat. We continued working down the beach, each getting a few hits, before something big latched onto my fly. I was fishing an 8wt as the salmon migrating through the sound during this time of the year can do some serious damage on a lighter rod, and apparently so could this fish... It made several strong runs and had my rod doubled over most of the fight, but I finally managed to bring it to the net. A beautiful Puget Sound native Coastal Cutthroat just shy of 20". An amazing fish any day.

Me with the 'big Cutthroat'

A close up of the fish, just shy of 20" and chrome.

After turning this bruiser Cutthroat loose, we headed a little further down the beach to an area that usually holds a good number of Cutthroat. As usual, this spot not disappoint and we spent the next hour fishing our way down the beach and catching a handful of Coastal Cutthroat between 8" and 14". We saw one more fish that looked to be around 20" jump, as well as a couple of salmon, but didn't connect with anymore of this big fish. After a while the fishing died off as the tidal flow slowed down, so it was time to pull the plug on a great day on the water.