Catching Sea-Run Cutthroat Trout in Puget Sound
Fishing Beaches During the Right Tide is Key to Finding Biting Fish
Nov 6, 2008
Cutthroat trout thrive in the salty waters of Washington's South Puget Sound -- from Tacoma south to Olympia and Hood Canal.
It's a blast to catch these hard-hitting, hard-fighting fish. Think of them as mini steelhead or salmon. In fact, anglers often catch coho salmon while fishing for South Puget Sound cutthroat.
Sea-run cutts are sleek, olive-and- silver torpedoes with ink-black spots and a slash of orange or red under the jaw.
While salmon are seasonal fish, sea-run cutts prowl South Puget Sound beaches all the time.
But these wild fish, which run from 8 to 22 inches long, also zip up into freshwater to spawn, steal eggs from the nests of spawning salmon -- or whenever they feel like it.
Sea-run cutts move around a lot, and Puget Sound’s inlets are huge bodies of water, so finding biting fish is the biggest challenge.
Once the fish are found, cutts readily slam flies or lures that imitate small fish, marine worms and tiny crustaceans.
Anglers must use single, barbless hooks and release all cutthroat trout caught in saltwater in the state of Washington.
All Puget Sound cutthroat trout are wild. Catch-and-release regulations have made this fishery the best sea-run cutt spot in the world.
Finding Sea-Run Cutts
Good sea-run cutthroat anglers always have a tide table handy.
Puget Sound has huge tidal changes -- the water level on a beach can rise or drop 10 feet or more in six hours.
All that flowing water creates currents that sweep food into feeding lanes, and cutthroat always bite best when the water is moving.
The flowing water often creates seams -- called rips -- between fast and slow water. Cutthroat often lurk along these rips and dart out to grab food.
Cutts also lurk near oyster beds, points of land that jut out into Puget Sound, and rocky, shelly beaches. A tiny creek or stream flowing into Puget Sound is a fish magnet.
Catching the Tides
Some beaches or spots fish better on a rising tide, and others are better on a falling tide. The best spots - often closely held secrets - fish well on both tides.
Cutts usually stop biting on a slack tide - the hour or so at peak high tide or lowest low tide. The is no water flow at slack tide, and water flow triggers the fish to feed.
Reading a Tide Table
Here’s a typical entry from a Puget Sound tide table:
High: 1:07 a.m., with a height of 10 feet.
Low: 7:07 a.m., with a height of 3.2 feet.
High: 1:46 p.m., with a height of 14.9 feet.
Low: 8:48 p.m., with a height of 3.5 feet.
If this beach fishes best on a falling tide, anglers will arrive between 1:46 p.m. and 8:48 p.m., as the water level will drop by 11.4 feet in seven hours. That creates a lot of current -- and will likely trigger a feeding spree.
If the beach fishes better on a rising tide, anglers will show up between 7:07 a.m. and 1:46 p.m.
Fishing may be slow when the tide has just started moving -- or when the current is slowing down to a slack tide. On this table, low slack is at 7:07 a.m., and high slack is at 1:46 p.m. Most anglers show up about an hour after low or high slack tide.
Learning Beaches
Sea-run cutthroat anglers fish a new beach or spot on rising and falling tides to find out which tide sparks feeding fish.
When in doubt, get to the beach when the tide is moving and start casting!
Anglers keep notes on what tides work best on each beach. Finding new beaches is part of the fun.
Remembering that cutts feed when the water is moving is key to finding and hooking fish.
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