Fly Fish for Puget Sound Sea-Run Cutthroat Trout
Match Your Fly to What the Fish are Eating for Year-Round Action
Nov 13, 2008
Fly fishing for sea-run cutts in Puget Sound is all about finding the fish - and then showing them the right fly. But how do anglers choose from the hundreds of fly patterns designed for cutts?
Having a few go-to flies that match what the cutts are eating - and a fly rod that casts a floating 5-weight or 6-weight line - is a great start.
Sea-Run Cutthroat Chow
Puget Sound cutts tend to feed on the food that is most abundant at that moment. The menu changes from season to season, but the fish are always eating some kind of baitfish, marine worms or crustaceans.
Baitfish usually travel in schools close to the surface, and swirling boils and splashes on the surface shows that cutts are feeding on small fish.
Marine worms spend most of their lives hiding in the bottom mud, oyster beds and gravel. But the flowing water of Puget Sound tidal changes flushes the worms out into the open, and the cutts quicky snap them up. Marine worms also gather in large, writhing pods to mate, and that brings on Trout-O-Rama - if you have the right fly.
Crustaceans include small shrimp, krill and other bug-like creatures that live in the open water and in the beach gravel and shellfish beds. Cutts often prowl the shallow water on a rising or falling tide to eat crustaceans washed out of their hiding places.
Matching Baitfish
Baitfish include sand lance, sculpins, small herring, anchovies and baby salmon.
Sand lance look like small eels, and they often swim near the rocky shoreline. An olive and white Clouser Minnow matches sand lance very well. Clouser Minnows also match herring and anchovies. A variety of Clouser Minnows from one inch to four inches long imitate a lot of different baitfish.
Sculpins are small fish with huge mouths that live among the bottom rocks. Slowly stripping in a Muddler Minnow streamer through a rip - the border between still and flowing water - is a great way to catch a big cutt. Cutts feed on sculpins all year long, but they really whack them during winter and spring.
Millions of baby chum salmon swim into Puget Sound each spring. The cutts are waiting for this wave of food. The chum salmon swim in schools near the shoreline. Casting Bob Triggs' Chum Baby fly and stripping it in hooks a lot of cutts from March through early summer.
Marine Worms
A marine worm doesn't look like a garden earthworm. They can be several inches long, and they wiggle through the water very quickly!
There are dozens of marine worm patterns, but two of the best are Wooly Bugger flies and Knudsen Spiders. Having these flies in a variety of colors - red, pink, orange, olive and yellow - on size 10, 8 and 6 streamer hooks is a good idea.
Cutts often feed on marine worms. Casting these flies out and rapidly stripping them back in often sparks a big strike from a prowling cutt. Worm flies work well on falling tides -- especially if there are shellfish beds nearby.
Crustaceans
A dizzying variety of creepy, crawly creatures live in Puget Sound. Olive or tan Wooly Buggers in sizes 12 through 8 match small shrimp. A small scud fly - a size 12 Gold-ribbed Hare's Ear will work in a pinch - matches the tiny crustaceans that crawl and swim around the bottom rocks.
A scud fly in white, pink, tan or yellow is a good imitation of the krill that often swarms just offshore. Trout dimpling the surface in gentle boils - and lots of sea gulls dipping their beaks into the water - are signs of krill.
Every fly angler that casts for Puget Sound sea-run cutts should have a copy of Les Johnson's Fly-Fishing Coastal Cutthroat Trout. Portland: Frank Amato, 2004. Another must-have book is Steve Raymond's The Estuary Flyfisher. Portland: Frank Amato, 1996.
When in doubt, expert anglers often tie on a size 10 olive Wooly Bugger and start casting!
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