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[clarki]

For those that enjoy a read about fishing the beaches for our wild native sea run coastal cutthroat

July 19
My buddy Ken loves to fish, but he hasn't nailed down the catching part yet, so I brought him down to the beach with the hopes of getting him into some fish. Now I wouldn’t say that this beach is  sure thing but fish the right tides with an approximation of the right gear, listen to your ghillie, and you’ll touch some fish  Lots of weeds in the water; very challenging fishing for first hour and we had to do a fair amount of walking to find open water. In the end we each landed one wild ct. Not the most productive of evenings but at least it wasn't a total wash and Ken got into his first ct and, dare I say, his first fish in quite awhile.       

July 24
Down to the beach solo tonight. Hooked 5 ct but only landed 1, a wild.  I got a visual on the 4 that I lost and 3 were of good size in the 13-15" range but I lost a hoggie, one for my personal record books.  This fish hit in close and when he cleared the water on the hookset, my jaw dropped. He had to be in the high teens, low twenties (inches). As big a ct as I had seen down here in years and one of the biggest that I’ve ever hooked. Alas our relationship was shortlived and he returned my trusty spoon to me. 
Unfortunately another smaller ct was not quite so fortunate. In his haste to attack my spoon he missed and the hook went in through his eye and out the top of the centre of his head.  DOA. I was saddened; normally I treat these wild fish with kid gloves (that’s why I fish barbless when barbed are permitted), and I was disappointed to see him dead. Regardless, I packed him home (debating the lawfulness of carrying an undersized, wild ct) and fried him up the next evening. I haven’t harvested a sea run ct for many years, but they are as delicious as I recall.

July 25
My buddy Barry was down with his son tonight for a couple of hours. Between them they hooked 11 and landed 5.  Barry reported that his son hooked and lost a large ct in the 19” range. Sounds familiar...  I guess he didn’t get enough to eat the night before.

Date: July 26
Down to the beach with my another buddy Glen tonight. We were hitting the occasional fish, including the odd juvenile chinook (the predatory instincts of these young fish never ceases to amaze me), but nothing in great numbers and we had to keep moving up and down the beach to find the fish. Towards the end of the evening we hit the jackpot and each hooked 2 fish within a span of 5 minutes. At one point I was watching in the water for my spoon (as I normally do to see what’s chasing it) when it appeared in view with no less than 3 ct chasing it. That was a first!  After awhile the pod moved on and more spot changes failed to produce many more fish. In the end we hooked 10 fish and landed 4.             
 
All in all, a very productive week.

Lots of fish less than 12“ this year. It’s encouraging to see the little wild guys as it means that the ct are continuing to spawn successfully on their own. Oh well, they‘ll be bigger next year…       

[kellya]

Im confused did u illegaly keep an undersized wild cutt? Even if it wasnt gonna make it i dont know if that was the best idea.

[clarki]

Like I said, the cutt was DOA (dead on arrival). It was dead as a stone when I reeled it in. Did I illegally keep an undersized wild cutt? I retained an undersized wild cutt that was already dead. Is that illegal?  Depends how you split hairs, but I didn't violate the spirit of the law. It was either the gulls or me, I chose me.

[kellya]

I dunno thats a iffy call. Im sure dfo wouldnt agree

[clarki]

A continuation...

Aug 10: Spent some time on the beach tonight with my sister-in-law. In the past couple of years Heather has decided to take up fishing and has just taken a ladies fly fishing course so I thought beach fishing for ct's would be just the ticket: no crowds, simple tackle and and better than good chance of hooking up with some fish. 

Very challenging conditions tonight though. A very stiff onshore breeze, produced a 1-2 ft chop and murky water. Heavy weeds along the shoreline made for very treacherous wading as you couldn't see the bottom. Heather was a trooper though. At a hundred pounds nuthin', a couple of waves almost took her off her rock but she hung on and kept gamely casting.

We moved around a number of times but couldn’t find the fish. In the end, she landed the only 2 bullheads of the evening and earned the title "Bullhead Queen". Not a great introduction to beach fishing; we'll get her down again soon.

Aug 12: fished for 1 1/2 hours mid morning on the flood tide. I was supposed to be home painting crown moulding, I don’t usually fish in the mornings, and I tend to fish a higher flood tide, but the beach was singing its siren song. It was bright and sunny at home so I opted to leave my waders in the garage and wade wet in my shorts and sandels. Great idea, except down at the beach the morning marine fog had not yet burned off so it was a tad chilly without the warming sun.

Despite an assortment of bullheads, the only game fish was a large fish that hit close in. It struggled strongly and pulled drag more than a cutthroat of the same would. As it flashed brightly in the water in front of me I realized that it must be the first beach coho of the season. "Oh crap, I haven't checked the regs yet, am I allowed to retain adipose clipped coho...?" The question was rendered moot as I waded into shore to land the fish it came unbuttoned.

Nice strong fish and only a sign of things to come.     

[phatwop]

Where is this "cutthroat beach"?
...lemme guess, a secret right..

[clarki]

The beach isn't a secret per se, but you are right, I can't (or won't) tell you where it is. Sorry.

I will extend the same offer as always; if asked I will gladly share anything I know about beach fishing for cutthroat that I've picked up in my 10+ years of being a beach hound...I just can't/won't tell you where to park. 

[Yopesco]

Clarki:

I'll take on your offer, don't tell me where to park but tell me everything else . You can start with tackle, baits/lures/flies, time of year, what kind of water to look for, etc.  Is it fly fishing?
Thanks,

Yopesco

[BwiBwi]

Ya how do you tell if the beach has cutties?

[newsman]

Check out the botom, they like a gental slope with gravel. They also seem to like oyster beds. Next look for jumpers, if you don't see them jumping they aren't there.

[BwiBwi]

Hmm, interesting. I know a couple places on the island that has great oyster bed, gentle slope with gravel. Oh ya and its about 100 meters away from creek.
Is there a higher chance of spotting a cuttie? like high tide low tide? or is it time of day more important?

Thank you

[clarki]

Yopesco and Bwi; I'll tell you what I can based upon my experience.

I spincast using light spinning gear and very small spoons in the 1/8, 1/6 oz range. The Gibbs Ultra is my preferred spoon but my friends also use the Gibbs Prism Croc. Spinners works as well but I still with spoons. Countless anglers far better than I have flyfished the beaches up and down the coast for years with great success, I just happen to prefer spinfishing. 

My beach season runs from April'ish to September'ish. I've never fished mid-winter although I have heard of other anglers catching fish on other beaches in winter. Never something that I've explored (although I've intended to)

I echo Newsman's comments about the gradually sloping gravel beach although my preferred beach is a cobblestone beach with many larger rocks and boulders.  In my experience sandy beaches don't hold the fish as well. 

If you want to tell if the beach has cutties you need to do some research. Using the many online tools (namely FishWizard, is it still called that?) you can search out which streams have, or are being, stocked with cutthroat. Or you can use another database to search out stream surveys to indicate the fish populaltions by specie. Once you've found these streams, do some exploring to find suitable beaches nearby. Even beaches several miles away will hold these cutts. 

Then start visitting these beaches on the flood tide, nearing high slack, to fish and to watch. If you find a beach that appears suitable and it's near a cutthroat producing stream, and you don't see cutts on your first visit, keep going back before you write it off. On this point I will respectfully disagree with Newsman that if you don't see them jumping they aren't there. I've had some very productive nights when I've not seen a jumper. Although jumpers are a certain indicator that cutts are present, don't draw the conclusion immediately that if they aren't jumping, they aren't present. 

Move around the beach. If you cast to water around you for 20 or so minutes and don't touch a fish, move up or down the beach  so your casting radius overlaps and start up again. I don't how many times I've found fish this way. On one memorable night, each of 3-4 spot changes produced a fish on the first couple casts.

Happy cutt hunting.         

[BwiBwi]

Thank you.  Is there a direction you should be casting to with respect to current direction?
Also how far do you need to cast?

Thank you

[Yopesco]

Thank you Clarki. One more question, you mentioned night, is it better at some time(s) of the day or it goes with the tides?

Yopesco

[clarki]

Not sure I understand your question BwiBwi… The fish are not necessarily directly out in front of you in deeper water. Although I’ve not experienced this, I’ve read about seasoned anglers catching cutts behind other anglers who have waded too deep. I fish about a 90 degree arc in front of me from 45 degrees on either side. If I’m out in slightly deeper water I will cast perpendicular and have caught fish in the same depth of water that I’m in. Fish all around you, don’t just cast straight out.

You don’t need to wing your cast way out there. Some fish always seem to be farther than I can cast (isn’t that always the case!) but I’ve found no shortage of fish within range of my 1/8 oz spoon (which I can’t cast that far), say 50-60 ft.

Yopesco, I can’t categorically say that flood tides in the evening are the most productive time to fish; it may depend on the locale. I just know that it seems most productive on the beach that I frequent.   I pay more attention to the tides than I do the time of day and will fish a flood tide (preferably as it approaches high slack) whenever I can get it. That just happens to be in the evenings as I work days. I have also caught many fish in the middle of the bright and sunny afternoon (on a flood tide, mind you).   

Happy cutt pursuits.