Northwest Fishing Reports

Here's a question.......

Anyone have any information (willing to share) on Flyfishing Lake Washington for Cuttthroat?? I know the standard way is to troll but I just can't get the idea out of my head of Cutthroat's cruising the mouths of the springs and creeks looking for smolts and minnows (sticklebacks esp.). Am I just kidding myself?? My fishing buddy says I am but it seems logical they would target these areas.

Any ideas, or just want to confirm my buddy's judgement?

Gman,
Try it and let us know what happens. I've never dealt with Sea-Run cutts, but the Westslope cutts I chase like red and orange. If you have a fish finder, check out the depth they are hanging out at, and slow troll or slow retrieve a wet fly with those colors in it. If you are using Pop Gear and that works OK, you'll have fun with them. If you are using a fly rod and an Orange & Partridge Soft Hackle, you'll have more fun. I'd be interested to find out what happens. I've never fished Sea-Runs, just Westslopes.

I've tried it a couple times and never had any luck. But hell, thats just me. You might nail em dead out there with flies. My personal experience has taught me that this is a gear fishery though.

When conditions are right in the spring (water is still, no wind, some bugs on the surface), they're cruising the surface looking for bugs. A big cutt snuck up and slurped a water skeeter in front of me once on LK WA, while I was fishing on the bottom with worms. Scared the poop out of me... I thought it was a big water moccasin.

Depending on where you fish and what types/sizes of flies you use, you'll also hook a fair amount of 3-6 inch juvenile salmonids. So, you might want to use a bigger fly to avoid hooking these guys.

Me, I just use night crawlers and worms crept slowly along the bottom, fishing from docks. Some docks are better than others for cutts. I prefer the docks in the Eastside. March-April is best. Sometimes into May. Be out there and fishing when there is a big wind chopping up the water, if you are fishing bait from shore.

In my youth we would paddle out to the sand bar at the mouth if the Cedar and wade around fly fishing for trout at the drop-offs. We only caught rainbows and salmon smolts back then, but it was a blast. Not sure if you'd bag any of the larger cutts as they typically prefer deeper water, greater than 45 feet, over the shallows. We used a sinking tip line with a streamer fly in a pattern that will mimic a smolt, smelt or stickleback. Do not use a dry fly or nymph pattern with smolts in the area, you'll end up killing a bunch of them as they are very aggressive and will take the flies deep. If you start to hook into too many smolts, increase the size of your fly, again, you don't want to be injuring these salmon at such a delicate stage of their lives.

Fly fishing lake washington is possible on select mornings in March and early April as the cutts re-emerge from spawning. You need a real calm, dead calm, morning and then you need to get it out there on a type II intermediate and strip some nice big streamers...red one's work really well. Get ready and have a good amount of backing. It's a patience fishery, but they slam streamers and selective dries on certain days only. The best days are before a front is coming in (like today) when it is like 60F out and the wind is light in the early early morning or late late night. They come up and are bug hungry. Very good question...find the ledges where it drops off dramatically from like 20-30' to like 150' and fish those bays and ledges. They're there!!