The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is once again planning to stock 82,500 cutthroat trout into Lake Chelan in north-central Washington State.
These are westslope cutthroat trout, which in addition to the planted fish also are native to this massive fishing lake, which is most famous for its world-class landlocked salmon and lake trout opportunities.
The cutthroat trout provide yet another great angling opportunity at Lake Chelan, which is one of Washington’s premier freshwater fishing destinations.
Note that you can only keep cutthroat trout here that have a clipped adipose fin, marking them as hatchery-reared. Unclipped cutthroat trout are presumed to be natives and must be safely released under WDFW regulations.
More people come to Lake Chelan for its absolutely renowned fishing for kokanee salmon, which are landlocked sockeye salmon, and for lake trout, a non-native char species also known as Mackinaw that can reach weights of over 30 pounds here.
Lake Chelan also has healthy fisheries for landlocked Chinook salmon, smallmouth bass, and burbot, also known as freshwater cod or lings. Other species you might catch include rainbow trout, largemouth bass, and northern pikeminnow.
Many of those other popular game fish are often fished in the deep waters of the lake’s more accessible southeastern end near communities like Chelan and Manson, which you can reach by road and nearby marinas.
The cutthroat trout (along with the less-common rainbows), on the other hand, can often be found in greater numbers at the more remote upper end of the lake near the tiny community of Stehekin, which can only reasonably be reached by boat.
In this area, the mouth of the Stehekin River as well as smaller tributary streams pour colder water into the lake, attracting the cutthroat trout to their mouths and up into the streams.
Cutthroat like cool conditions but prefer shallower water than Lake Chelan’s salmon and char and can also be caught from shore and around docks as well as from boats.
Cutthroat trout here will hit the same sorts of tackle that cutthroat elsewhere will hit, including smaller spoons and spinners, artificial flies, and natural baits such as nightcrawlers. Be sure to read up on all the specifics in the WDFW regulations.
It’s a different type of fishing than the deep trolling tactics most often used for kokanee, lakers, and Chinooks. Burbot also inhabit the dark depths of this lake, while numerous smallmouths stick near rocky structures closer to shore.
Most of the westslope cutthroat trout stocked at Lake Chelan are need a bit of growth before reaching the 12- to 17-inch prime size for this species. They are usually stocked in June or July. The 2026 schedule says June.
Prime times to catch them are spring into early summer and again at the end of summer and into early fall, when conditions are cool but not frigid and trout are actively feeding.
Westslope cutthroat are one of three subspecies of cutthroat trout found in Washington State and are generally located east of the Cascade Mountains. Coastal cutthroat are the other native species and are most often found west of the Cascades.
The third variety of cutthroat you can catch in Washington are Lahontan cutthroat trout, which are native to the area known as the Great Basin stretching across parts of California, Oregon, and Nevada, and introduced into a handful of Washington lakes with highly alkaline water chemistry. They are not found in Lake Chelan, and your best chance of catching them in the Evergreen State is often at Lenore Lake (Lake Lenore) in Grant County.
It’s worth noting that Lake Chelan is massive, stretching more than 50 miles in length and covering about 33,000 surface acres. It’s long and fairly narrow for its size.
You’ll need a boat, a drive over remote roads, or a very long hike to reach much of it beyond the more developed southeastern end. That end near Chelan is within a few miles of the Columbia River, has lots of amenities, places to stay and eat, fishing guides to hire, marinas, and a state park. Campgrounds are dispersed around the lake.