The peak time for cutthroat spawning is in March but cutthroat may enter the rivers anytime from July through February. Some fish may be returning to saltwater as early as March or April. Since the cutthroat, unlike steelhead, continue to eat while on their spawning runs, many of them remain in pretty good condition and recover very quickly once they return to the Sound. It has been suggested that some cutthroat overwinter in saltwater but there is no hard evidence to indicate that this is so. What I'm trying to get around to is that cutthroat can be caught in saltwater any month of the year. Late winter and very early spring will probably be the times of lowest concentration. Most of the people that I know who fish cutts in the north Sound wait until June to start seriously looking for them along the beaches. I have taken cutthroat as early as the middle of April that were fat and healthy-looking (I haven't fished for cutts much at that time, in a normal year I'd still be chasing steelhead then). The absolute best time of year is probably from mid-summer to fall when they seem to be staging along the beaches adjacent to the mouths of rivers and (sometimes surprisingly small) streams. Not a very good answer, I realize, but cutthroat are the least studied of our anadromous fishes and have the most variable run timing.
