THE CASE FOR CUTTS
It’s hard to explain the appeal of dry fly fishing for a 14-inch cutthroat trout because, well — it’s 14 inches.
A 14-pound salmon or 41-pound king salmon is what goes on the Alaska brochures. No one goes back to the Lower 48 and brags about the cutthroats they caught. They are an afterthought – the leaf of romaine lettuce on which the rest of the burger fixings sit. No, they are the neglected bit of garnish that is more often than not returned with the otherwise empty plate.
It makes sense though. Why would someone pay a couple thousand dollars for the memory of catching a trout, unless it was a 30-inch rainbow?
But a cutthroat trout on a dry fly is about as good as it gets. Yeah, stripping a pink gurgler across the surface and having a silver salmon smash it with violent enthusiasm is unforgettable, and hauling that king salmon through a gauntlet of other guide boats and carnivorous sea lions can be an accomplishment, but a spunky cutthroat certainly holds its own.
Here’s the totally over-romanticized reason.
Unlike mooching or trolling for king salmon, in which you’re waiting for something to happen, you make things happen when dry fly fishing. You see what’s down there.
In a run a foot wide and three feet long, I saw a few noses of cutthroat trout rising to bugs on the surface of the water. Some people refer to it as “sipping.” Sipping isn’t really a creative way to describe it and it’s used so much in the flyfishing world it’s almost cliché. But it’s exactly what trout do. It’s a gentle breaking of the surface to delicately snack. It’s a sip. There is no other way to describe it.
If the goal is to catch fish, then using a dry fly is likely putting yourself at a disadvantage. That’s sort of the point. So you tie on a fly that looks sippable and cast it out there with grace, not grunts. There’s no science or engineering involved. No super vibration, no secret cure recipe, no UV color, no “wild action without line twist.”
Once the strike happens, chaos ensues.
I casted into the feeding lane and dropped the rod tip. The mixed up current put loops in the floating fly line, but the fly didn’t drag. It sat on the surface, moving at the same rate as the current.
“Sip it…sip it…”
A golden flash started up from the bottom, preparing to sip. It’s hard to remain calm when you see this, but set too soon and you miss. If there’s too much slack in the line, no hook up. But if the timing and slack are right, fish on.
There is no fighting butt on a trout fly rod, so the energy doesn’t stop at the reel. It runs down the graphite like electricity searching for ground. From the end of the rod it heads past your wrist, into your ulna and settles in your marrow.
In hand a king salmon is beautiful, but gets its beauty from that familiar chrome. You don’t look at a king and say, “Such beautiful spots and color.” They get their beauty from their size.
A cutthroat is art that swims and bites. That in itself makes them more than just an afterthought. It also makes them worth catching…and releasing.
• Jeff Lund is a teacher and freelance writer based out of Ketchikan.
