Coastal Cutthroat, the role of the Coalition and the road ahead.

We first heard about the Coastal Cutthroat Coalition back in January when we met James Losee, fish biologist for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. James has the energy of 10 kids on Halloween and he pours all of it into family, surfing and fish science. He told us about how WDFW and volunteers have been tagging Cutthroat around the Puget Sound to track and collect invaluable data to improve our understanding of Coastal Cutthroat. Losee went on to tell us about the public's formation of the Coalition as a vehicle to raise awareness and funds in order to sustain these types of projects.

Ever since that conversation, we've been trying to figure out how we can help! Coastal Cutthroat have captured the hearts of many but very little is known about their environmental needs and uniqueness, such as life history, anadromous, resident or a combination of the two. We felt the Coalition could be an opportunity to do the right thing from the start by taking action to understand & monitor these fish for future generations.

But we're not fish experts, and we just started fly fishing 9 months ago, so head on over to the Coalition page for greater insight into the science and data.

In the meantime we would love to have you join us for our Fly Swap on September 15th, to raise awareness and funds for the Coalition.

The information gathered from this project will also help biologists define annual abundance, evaluate management plans, ensure the long term stability of the Coastal Cutthroat Trout population throughout the Northwest, and maintain sustainable fishing opportunity.

This video by Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife goes over tips and techniques to improve success at catching sea-run coastal cutthroat trout in marine waters by flyfishing. Catch-and-release fishing and safe handing techniques were also provided to help anglers release fish unharmed, as was work being done by WDFW to better understand this native fish.