My dad and I hiked up to both Chitwood and Hanson today, this report is just for the Chitwood part of the trip. We got to the lake around 7:45am and began fishing soon after that. I started with a 1/8oz. gold and crimson Kastmaster and within about two or three casts promptly hooked into the biggest Cutthroat I have yet to catch out of Chitwood. It was just shy of 14" long. I was naturally pretty excited about that, bonked the fish, put it on the stringer, and on the next cast or two I got another nice Cutty, probably in the 11" to 12" range. I decided to let that one go (and it assisted with a nice self release at the shore as I was deciding what to do), knowing that the real target lake for the day was Hanson and not wanting to use up too many of my five fish limit early on.

My dad used different types of Rooster Tails, mostly on the smaller end of the spectrum. It wasn't long until he hooked into a nice Cutty himself on a gold bladed tiger pattern (body) with bucktail feathers. He also tried using essentially solid white and solid black patterns, both with silver blades, but didn't get any hits. A little later on I got another nice hit on my gold and crimson Kastmaster, but that was about it. After around 50 minutes we left the lake and moved on to Hanson, but I am sure we both could have brought in limits at Chitwood without too much effort if we kept going knowing that we had three to the shore, good hits, and many follows in only 50 minutes...without even touching the worms or eggs we brought.

The patterns I saw at the lake today were that gold coloration was the key, paired with slow retrieves and the occasional twitch of the rod tip and then letting the lure fall for a moment. I was typically letting my Kastmaster sink for 2 to 5 seconds after hitting the water.

I rated our short experience as a four because the action was so good, I got my biggest Cutthroat yet, and I am confident we could have limited without too much trouble if we had stayed. Check out the continuation for today in my Hanson Lake report.

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