I have been thinking about the local cutthroat opportunities we have as fly fishermen here in Puget Sound and started to get a little sad. I am pretty convinced that it will never be better than it is today or was last year. I have had some pretty epic days and times when the sea-run was my best friend. There is something about being able to have a great hour of fishing, and knowing you can go back and they will always be there for you. I am afraid that is isnt going to last.
I know i play a roll in this but i think that the internet is going to be the biggest factor on this fishery over the next 10 years. With the lack of other fishing options people are going to start to look at the alternatives. In years past i feel like people knew cutthroat were in the waters but didnt have a good idea about how to find them or a group of people to target them with. not necessarily fishing together but comparing notes and locations.
Could we be at the beginning of a big wave of people starting to see this catch and release fishery and begin to exploit it?
Cutthroats have made a great rebound since the moratorium on harvest was put in place but i just wonder if they have enough resiliance to with stand the tidal wave of people i fear is starting to build and descend upon my favorite fish.

I hear ya, D3. Sea-run cutts were among the first fish I caught when I moved to WA about 11 years ago. What cool fish they are. They kept me coming back, again and again, until I moved away from the Sound and wasn't close enough to make a lot of trips practical. My favorite beach was consistently good, and I had more than a couple trips where I landed more than one 20"+ fish, including one 24" hog whose equal I have yet to see. The fish there were generally large, and sometimes the action was nothing short of ridiculous. Last time I fished that beach, in late January, I didn't so much as see anything moving. I put up a post here asking if anyone knew whether the fish might have all been in the streams spawning, and the opinions were mixed. I sure hope that was the case, but I haven't been back yet, so I don't know.

I agree that many more people are likely aware of the sea-runs now than 10 years ago, but I think (hope) we may continue to see decent fishing for them for some time to come. The reason for my optimism lies in that they are still restricted to C&R, which means a lot of people won't bother to fish for them, and those who do will be mostly (poachers excepted, of course) conscientous (sp?) anglers who will handle them with respect and release them. I am a believer in that C&R, while it does kill a small percentage of fish caught, is generally an effective means of sustaining a quality fishery. Hopefully, that will hold true for the cutts. They can be a great cure for the frustrations that often come with salmon fishing in the fall, and I would definitely miss them if they started to fade.

Here's hoping this will be one species that continues to beat the odds....

Sea-run cutties hold a special place to me as that was my childhood. Days upon days in the summer I would take off on my bike, rod sticking out of the backpack, racing the mile or so to the shoreline. That first cast was almost always a guaranteed cutthroat.

The fishery up here has always been quiet, really its only been a select few of us who pursue these fish probably due to the location and the c&r factor. Many of these fish are healthy too as a 15" is not uncommon, my personal best at the 24" mark. For a couple of seasons the seals showed up and really put a damper on things to the point that I left the fishery alone for a couple years. Yesterday, my buddy hooked around 15 so it proves that these fish can be resilient.

Here's to beating the odds as well!

D3,

SRC are doing about as well as is possible with current habitat conditions. This means that the CNR fishery hasn't developed to the point of causing an adverse population effect. Yet. As the human population continues to grow, an increase in angling pressure is almost certain, as is further habitat degradation. Those two factors will necessarily cause a reduction in the quality and quantity of the fishery over time.

I don't fish for SRC in the salt, in large part because I still have viable steelhead fishing options, but those have certaintly dwindled in the last decade. I've thought about pursuing SRC in the salt for the last three years, largely for that reason. I suppose it's only a matter of time.

Sg

As usual, I agree with what you are saying, Salmo. Population increase is probably to blame (at some point) for just about every factor contributing to the decline of our native species, and no doubt, it will eventually take its toll on the sea-runs.

That said, another factor in their relative success has probably been that many of them spawn in small streams that support few or no food fish or are closed to fishing. This protects them from heavy fishing pressure during their spawning cycle (and thereby incidental and/or intentional hooking or gillnet mortality). These smaller and/or more remote streams also tend to have spawning habit that is likely near to on par with what they have had historically, which is a luxury our salmon and steelhead rarely enjoy. Granted, some of that habitat will begin to be lost to development as the population continues to grow, but for now, I think there are reasons to be somewhat optimistic on the SRC front.

I sure hope I'm right....

Yes. But some years, no.

D3-
It would be my opinion that the across western Washington our coastal cutthroat populations in general and the anadromous life history in particular over the last decade have been at levels not seen in the previous fifty years. It is likely that we will not see those levels sustained; rather we are likely to see a slow erosion in their numbers largely due to the man's impacts on those key small streams in the low lands and other habitat features.

However I suspect that there is more to your concerns that just the abundance of our beloved cutthroat. In the north Puget Sound region where we have seen relatively stable numbers for the last 25 years yet I have seen a more or less steady decline in the over all fishing. A major factor in that decline of course is that we are sharing that resource with more and more rods. That increased pressure impacts fishing in several ways: 1) the number of willing biters on a given day is being divided among more of us; increase effort puts other fish down, 2) increase traffic puts down some of the fish, 3) even a willing fish like the cutthroat eventually becomes less willing to bite after being caught. and 4) even under CnR the cummulative impacts of multiple catches reduces the number of older fish in the population.

In short enjoy what you have for these are the "good ole days".

Tigth lines
Curt

I couldnt agree more with Curt's comments. I have fished SRC's for nearly 30 years in area 13. The fishery has changed tremendously in that time. While there are still good numbers of fish, there are alot more good fisherman chasing after them. The internet, tackle shops promoting the fishery, fishing clubs and guides doing the same, have increased the knowledge and shortened the learning curve for people learning the sport. In my experience with SRC's, the adage that 10% of the water holds 90% of the fish could not be more true. I have noticed an exponential increase in the fishing pressure in some of the areas that I fish. In the South Sound, the "good old days" were about 15-20 years ago, just long enough after catch and release was initiated for all year classes to rebound. Alot of big fish, and not many people after them.

I was fishing an area that gets pretty heavy pressure a few years ago with the standard clousers, spiders, poppers, tubes etc and could not get bit. Fish were working candlefish hard right on the beach. I happened to have some frozen candlefish that I had dipped a few months back in the freezer at home. I went back to the same beach the next evening and fished it with flies-nada once again except for a few foot longs. I rigged up some candlefish on my spinning rod and simply could not believe the results; I landed 10 SRC's over 18" with the biggest taping at 23", from the same exact piece of water. This proved to me that these fish can get a lot more educated then most people give them credit for; although not too surprising when you learn how old some of these fish are-

F-C, i have a fly for you to try if you are in that situation again. shoot me a pm.
ds