THE CASE FOR CUTTS<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to explain the appeal of dry fly fishing for a 14-inch cutthroat trout because, well \u2014 it\u2019s 14 inches.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the totally over-romanticized reason. <\/p>\n
Unlike mooching or trolling for king salmon, in which you\u2019re waiting for something to happen, you make things happen when dry fly fishing. You see what\u2019s down there. <\/p>\n
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 \u201csipping.\u201d Sipping isn\u2019t really a creative way to describe it and it\u2019s used so much in the flyfishing world it\u2019s almost clich\u00e9. But it\u2019s exactly what trout do. It\u2019s a gentle breaking of the surface to delicately snack. It\u2019s a sip. There is no other way to describe it.<\/p>\n
If the goal is to catch fish, then using a dry fly is likely putting yourself at a disadvantage. That\u2019s sort of the point. So you tie on a fly that looks sippable and cast it out there with grace, not grunts. There\u2019s no science or engineering involved. No super vibration, no secret cure recipe, no UV color, no \u201cwild action without line twist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the strike happens, chaos ensues.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t drag. It sat on the surface, moving at the same rate as the current. <\/p>\n
\u201cSip it\u2026sip it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
A golden flash started up from the bottom, preparing to sip. It\u2019s hard to remain calm when you see this, but set too soon and you miss. If there\u2019s too much slack in the line, no hook up. But if the timing and slack are right, fish on.<\/p>\n
There is no fighting butt on a trout fly rod, so the energy doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
In hand a king salmon is beautiful, but gets its beauty from that familiar chrome. You don\u2019t look at a king and say, \u201cSuch beautiful spots and color.\u201d They get their beauty from their size.<\/p>\n
A cutthroat is art that swims and bites. That in itself makes them more than just an afterthought. It also makes them worth catching\u2026and releasing.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jeff Lund is a teacher and freelance writer based out of Ketchikan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE CASE FOR CUTTS It\u2019s hard to explain the appeal of dry fly fishing for a 14-inch cutthroat trout because, well \u2014 it\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[149],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18248"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}