SRC report bremerton area

Went to my local beach today to try my luck before dark.  Got there just before tide started to turn.  Third cast in and bam! A solid 15 inch cutthroat.  Nice healthy fish.  Go figure the one time I go out without my go pro, or camera I get him.  Hope to throw a picture on the board soon. 

Went to my local beach today to try my luck before dark.  Got there just before tide started to turn.  Third cast in and bam! A solid 15 inch cutthroat.  Nice healthy fish.  Go figure the one time I go out without my go pro, or camera I get him.  Hope to throw a picture on the board soon.

Great job. I catch SRCs in the Wilson but never in the salt. I do not think I even hear of folks catching them in the salt in Oregon. That must be pretty fun.

Nice catch!! They are such angry little critters in the salt.

Went to my local beach today to try my luck before dark.  Got there just before tide started to turn.  Third cast in and bam! A solid 15 inch cutthroat.  Nice healthy fish.  Go figure the one time I go out without my go pro, or camera I get him.  Hope to throw a picture on the board soon.

Nice work!  Fish know when you're camera is not available or not on.  If you ever want to not get bit, turn the camera on. 

Went to my local beach today to try my luck before dark.  Got there just before tide started to turn.  Third cast in and bam! A solid 15 inch cutthroat.  Nice healthy fish.  Go figure the one time I go out without my go pro, or camera I get him.  Hope to throw a picture on the board soon. 

I assume this was on a fly.  What were you using?  Anything on the next 100 casts?

I was down to my local beach a couple days ago and had the same thought.  Not had the fly gear out in some time. 

demonic, there's usually a good discussion of searun cutt (SRC) fishing going on in the Salt forum over at washingtonflyfishing.com. Techniques, fly patterns, fishing reports, etc.  Also, check the Fly Tying forums there, sub forums to look in are "Patterns" and Fly Swaps" as well as the general fly tying discussion.

Look for the thread "The Squimp." It seems like a really good fly.
Guys have been nailing them on Muddlers and Rolled Muddlers, too. (Lots of Sculpins out there).
Chum Babies will be golden by the end of March and all through April, as well as Sandlance Patterns. The cutts will be hammering the Chum and Pink fry as they move out into the salt. The Sandlance should be coming out of hibernation pretty soon now, too.
Any smaller salmon fry patterns should work. Start off smaller (1.5" to 2"), and then progress to bigger flies as the season progresses, so as to be fishing patterns about the same size as the fry or baitfish.
Even a #6 pale lime green wooly bugger with some flash in it is killer. I have good luck with White Ghosts and other variations on the Knudsen Spider.
The Conehead Squid and the Jim Dandy (or Snot Dart) are often good flies up around Admiralty Inlet and  northern Hood Canal

There are some very good searun cutt anglers over on wff discussing patterns and techniques that work. They are great about answering your questions, although they might be unlikely to out any secret spots. Some of the more well known beaches and access points are talked about, though.

Good luck. You might stumble into some awesome action just checking out a beach you were wondering about.  Hit the moving tides, not the dead high or low.

I'm going to try to spend more time tying, and right now that will be SRC and lake patterns. I am just getting into tying tube patterns, too. After I sign off here, I am going to work on refining my attempt at mocking the local Sculpins.

Fundamentally why does WA have saltwater SRC fishing but I never hear of it in OR. The SRC numbers in the Wilson have become pretty good over the last few years. What is that makes WA difference from OR when it comes to SRC behavior?

Fundamentally why does WA have saltwater SRC fishing but I never hear of it in OR. The SRC numbers in the Wilson have become pretty good over the last few years. What is that makes WA difference from OR when it comes to SRC behavior?

Puget Sound.  It's an easy feeding zone for them.  You can also find them in the coastal rivers, and I'd bet there are some in Oregon's coastal rivers too.

One time drifting down the Wynoochee, it was obvious that the steelhead weren't biting, so I made a lure out of a dropshot weight and a spinner corky, and the SRCs just nailed it constantly.

I've caught a bunch of SRC over the past few years (mostly in the south sound), and the most important thing I've learned is that they are in shallower than you think.  I would guess that 80% of the fish I've caught have been in 2 feet of water or less.

Any point where there's a break in the tidal current is a good place to cast.

Fundamentally why does WA have saltwater SRC fishing but I never hear of it in OR. The SRC numbers in the Wilson have become pretty good over the last few years. What is that makes WA difference from OR when it comes to SRC behavior?

Puget Sound.  It's an easy feeding zone for them.  You can also find them in the coastal rivers, and I'd bet there are some in Oregon's coastal rivers too.

One time drifting down the Wynoochee, it was obvious that the steelhead weren't biting, so I made a lure out of a dropshot weight and a spinner corky, and the SRCs just nailed it constantly.

There is good fishing for SRCs in the Wilson, but I never hear of them being caught in the salt. I would assume that they spend some time bunched up in the bays from time to time but I never hear of what time of year that would be nor of anyone fishing for them then. Perhaps it is just a zipperlip fishery.

Other than Puget Sound, I never hear of them being caught in the salt either, but maybe Coneheadmuddler catches them in the salt. 

They are present and catchable in almost all the coastal bays of Oregon that have rivers (that have SRC) feeding them. Its just way easier to catch them once they move up in the their home rivers

Sure, they are easier to catch in the rivers - when they are there. However, when they are not in the rivers where are they? In the bays, the open ocean, in the surf up and down the beaches? I do not think that they have the major open ocean migrations of salmon or steelhead.

I have found a straggler or two in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor near oyster beds and eel grass flats just off the river channels, mainly by trolling. But those are few and far between.  I have stumbled onto some spots where they seem to hang out, and keep learning more every time I explore the estuaries using a different route. Nobody seems to know anything about where they hang in the Harbor and Bay here once they migrate out of the streams. Or if they do, they ain't talkin'. That's a good thing, since I like to explore.

A few years ago, I ran into some biologists who were beach seining Halfmoon Bay (here in Grays Harbor) to do a forage fish and smolt population count. They were recording everything fishy in their nets. I asked them if they had netted any cutts. They told me that they had actually pulled in a 12"er  from the area, but had found more cutts in a spot closer to Aberdeen up the Chehalis R channel. They wouldn't say exactly where. I was stoked to hear of the one they netted, though.

Those searuns here on the coast are hard to pin down once they head out into the salt. Some of them head out into the ocean, and some stick around the big estuaries. Some coastal cutts don't even go searun, but stay in the rivers.
In those coastal rivers that don't run through a large estuary, but spill directly into the ocean, the searuns head out....where?? who knows? I read that one was caught 40 miles off shore once.