Yeah, that eyeball is a little strange I'd say.

While not technically illegal, targeting cutthroat in Whatcom is not cool, especially with bait, since a fish that swallows the hook is less likely to survive.

I have never had a salmon or trout swallow a herring while trolled, in all the years i have fished. I have caught 5 pound cutts in washington lake with cuttplugs and never once had a mortally hooked fish. With that said, why is targeting them not cool? how is it any "less cool" than targeting native steelhead for Catch and Release? I have had days where i catch 30 of these cutts a day in here, there is no shortage of the population now that it is closed for retention. There is nothing wrong with targeting fish you wish to release, unless you mortally wound them with bait (such as powerbait fishing). I can fish for whatever i want if it is legal to do so, and is not harming to population in any way. Not once have i ever killed a whatcom lake cutthroat. Other than this one i even dont even take them out of the knotless net. had to get a pic of his eyeball on this one tho. lol

Nice cutt !

this lake used to be no fishing at all for cuthroats, i take it as a sign of the recovering population if its now a c&r fishery. Nice fish

The enlarged eyeball is likely a result of barotrauma from the fish being pulled from deep water rapidly. The damage caused to the internal organs and tissue structure of fish that have experienced severe baurotrama is irreversible and very often times fatal. Targeting a fish species that must be released is illegal as far as I know, if a river says "release chinook", or "release chum" you cannot specifically target those fish HOWEVER if those fish are caught INCIDENTALLY fishing for other species they must be released (without removing them from the water).

Nonetheless, targeting cutthroat in Lake Whatcom is a big no-no, and removing them from the water is a less than idea situation for these fish, this population is very fragile.

Thanks for the report.

Not disputing the information given by Matt. Nor knowing at what depth "barotrauma" occurs in fish. Another option is, holdover trout have large eyeballs when compared to first year planted ones. That information was passed along from a WDFW fish biologis when inspecting a stringer of freshly caught trout.

that fish freaks me out.

haha it freaked me out too. I know exactly what your talking about matt, because i have caught perch and other fish around here that this happened too, but the funny thing is that this fish was actually caught on the surface with a spoon, it just had a wacked out eyeball. haha

Hard to tell, but which one is the fish?