6 Must Have Flies for Sea Run Cutthroat Trout and Puget Sound Beach Fishing 

You’re welcome!

If it’s helpful, we hit a homer. Thanks for responding and good luck out fishing!

Thanks so much!!

You’re welcome!! Glad you found it helpful!

Excellent! I'm glad you got an opportunity to fish for cutts while in town. Hope you come back!

Thanks for sharing. I’m going to check those out! Having flies that are castable is more important than many anglers realize!

That sounds interesting. I’ve fished reverse spiders before but only with moderate success. Have done better with them in estuaries compared to the open beaches

It was really hard to narrow it down to six. And I tried to make it as non-seasonal as possible…..and….I might have a few secret flies in my box still in “development”. Haha

I would say that the most well known is probably the reverse spider: gigharborflyshop.com/product/reverse-spider-fly-size-6/ Small Sculpin patterns can be effective too

Thanks for the idea, we’ll add it to the list

Saltwater anglers fishing for larger species can fish gurglers on intermediate lines because the flies they are using are larger with more buoyancy. For Puget Sound I recommend a floating line, especially for really small gurglers (which I love to fish)

I have fished the titantic. I think the design of the fly is super cool. It does have a tendency to twist on the cast though. The movement of the fly is very similar to the gurgler and the retrieve should be the same for both.

Hi Chase, in our area the cutthroat are from very small creeks. Because of the lack of food and the exposed vulnerability they spend more time in the saltwater than cutthroat that utilize large rivers. The creeks that are larger and could be fished, are many times closed. So with that said, we primarily fish for them in the salt. There are some areas where the cutthroat can be targeted in streams, like the Olympic Peninsula and Eastside of Puget Sound, for example. The reverse spider is a great fly for those fish in the estuaries and lower rivers. I also like the Knudsen spider. Muddler minnows are also excellent.

@@Gigharborflyshop Hey, thanks for the detailed info and quick response! That makes a lot of sense. I'm down in NW Oregon where we have lots of coastal rivers with searuns. I'll definitely give the spider style flies a try this season. Thanks again.

Sliders tend to fish (and cast) better than poppers. Leland’s is definitely the most well known out there for that category.

My experience is different. But I guess I could be wrong.

@@GigharborflyshopAs could I, of course. But I agree with your buddy Jack. I do exclusively saltwater fishing and troll my flies and have not been able to change a slow day into a hot day or a hot day into a slow day by changing colors on flies or flashers. I'm a data bug and kept quite detailed logs of my fishing in an excel file with lures, dates time and tidal information individually for thousands of fish over the last 12 years. Of course, I will have days where I'll catch 2 or 3 in a row on a certain color, or side of the boat, but when I run the numbers to draw p values from the totality of the data it gets weighed out to where there is no clear statistical evidence for the color influencing catch rates beyond random chance.

The reverse spider is good but I have found it be more effective seasonally. I also find it more effective in lower river situations than the salt.