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I have followed the Lake Washington Cutthroat Trout fishing for sometime now and figured it was time to give it a shot! Launched at Magnuson Park at 10 am and made a quick run, in the chop, over to Hunts Point/Fairweather Bay which offered just enough protection from the wind. I deployed a 4" ProChip flasher in Glow Chart and a double glow mini hoochie. I worked the area for about an hour. There appeared to be a lot of fish and bait in the area but no takers. One other boat trolled the area. I pulled the gear and made a run to Faben Point which also was just sheltered enough from the wind. There I fished the pictured tackle and worked the ledges for about 45 minutes until the undeniable bounce of the rod tip happened. Wasn't a strong pull, but a fish! I grabbed the rod, popped the line off the clip and brought in a nice 14"er to the boat. The fish was a little lethargic out of the gates, but put on a nice show at the boat. Caught it in about 45ft of water, 25ft down on the cable. Pretty happy with my first trip out on the lake but still wondering if I actually got a cutt or a rare rainbow?

cuervo

1/28/2013 5:37:00 PM

looks like a bow to me. Does it have the red lines under the jaw? Hard to tell from the angle of the pics.

Anonymous

1/28/2013 5:42:00 PM

I agree with cuervo, looks like a bow. Nice fish!

Toni

1/28/2013 6:12:00 PM

Yes it looks like a bow but the tell tale clue is the jaw and eye.

G-Man

1/28/2013 7:50:00 PM

I'll go with a bow as well, the mouth is just too small for a cutt and the coloring is not quite what I'm used to seeing on a cutt. Way to brave the weather and get some time on the water. When the winds are out of the south, the area around the point at Magnuson Park to Thorton Creek are usually manageable.

salmonlander

1/28/2013 11:35:00 PM

My understanding is that another way to tell the diff between rainbow and cutt is that the cutts have teeth on the tongue and bows do not.

salmonlander

1/28/2013 11:35:00 PM

My understanding is that another way to tell the diff between rainbow and cutt is that the cutts have teeth on the tongue and bows do not.

homewaters

1/29/2013 8:42:00 AM

Thanks for your confirmation everyone. I thought it was a bow also. No red line under jaw, small mouth, upper jaw doesn't extend past the margin of the eye, etc. To my understanding, the numbers of bows in Lake Washington is very limited? Is the case? Any of you ever catch them in LW?

reelinanrockin

1/29/2013 8:14:00 PM

What G-man said . cutts usually have more spots on the area behind the adipose fin too

reelinanrockin

1/29/2013 8:16:00 PM

Aren't we supposed to release rainbows this time of year in lake wa?

G-Man

1/29/2013 8:36:00 PM

At this time you can keep bows as long as they are not over 20" long. As the State doesn't believe that there are summer run steelhead in the system, you can keep bows, that you catch in the Lake, that are over 20" long between July 1st and Nov 30th. I find that I catch bows near the surface and in towards shore more often that out in the open waters and by the bridges. BTW - bows have teeth on their tongue, Hyoid teeth are found in the back of the throat, behind the tongue and not a 100% indicator of the fish being a cutt. The system has gone completely natural and interbreeding seems to be fairly common, so that you are going to catch quite a few "tweeners" once you dial in your technique.

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