Springtime Cutthroat Trout in Southeast Alaska

​When I moved to Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska in mid-May. I hoped that I had made it in time to catch the end of Steelhead season, so my first couple of trips out were Steelhead focused. My first stop was the Thorne River. The Thorne is largest river on the island and has multiple runs on the lower river that are suitable for swinging streamers with a spey or switch rod. I spent a couple days swinging through runs with my new Redington Dually switch rod I did not find any Steelhead. I was however catching cutthroat trout from time to time. After finding no steelhead on the Thorne I decided to check out another creek where I have had luck catching steelhead in the past. The creek is no more that 30 feet wide in most spots, so I traded my switch rod for my single hand eight weight. I drifted and swung a small streamer through the deeper pools and again found decent cutthroat fishing but no steelhead. I’ve never been on Prince of Wales Island this late in May so this is my first experience with spring cutthroat fishing. I figured if I was doing this well catching cutthroat with steelhead flies and larger hooks, I may find more success targeting cutthroat using trout streamers. My first day trout fishing I equipped myself with my 5 weight, an intermediate line, and a small grey and white clouser minnow. I went out to a small lake that feeds a stream on the east side of Prince of Wales Island, and first cast I hooked a steelhead. Luckily for me the steelhead was only about 28 inches and I didn’t have to fight it in a current, so after a long fight and a few failed attempts at land the fish I was able to land and release the steelhead. Fortunately that was the only steelhead I caught that day and I also landed a couple nice cutthroat but the fishing was pretty slow. I decided to return to the Thorne and spent the rest of the month catching a seemingly endless population of cutthroat in the river. The Thorne River has a variety of features in the lower river including ling runs, large pools, riffles, boulder gardens, and structure. All of these features hold cutthroat to one degree or another. I found that cutthroat throughout the river will happily take a dry fly or streamer. After fishing much of the lower river and finding trout of many different sizes in a variety of spots, I started to focus much of my time on deeper runs with a soft current. This feature holds the larger fish and can be effectively fished by both swinging and stripping streamers. While river fishing I used a 5 weight with a floating line, a slow sink tip, and a variety of bugger type streamers. While so many people come the Prince of Wales Island to experience the island’s premier steelhead and salmon fly fishing, I believe that the spring trout fishing is every bit as fun and believe this first class fishery is highly underrated. During the weeks I have been exploring I have interacted with only a handful of other anglers. If you are looking for some springtime solitude, the Thorne River is tough to beat.