This behavior can reduce abundance in all but the most productive populations. Furthermore, fish that are released after being caught with bait often die. Because most populations in southeast Alaska are of low density or low abundance, numbers of fish can be quickly reduced. Cutthroat have special habitat requirements and are dependent on small tributary streams for spawning and rearing. They are often displaced by other rearing species.
Fish are usually mature by their seventh year.
A female cutthroat produces only a few hundred to a thousand eggs. By comparison, steelhead trout or coho salmon produce 5 to 10 times that number of eggs per female. In 1994, the Alaska Board of Fisheries adopted new regulations for cutthroat trout fisheries. The desired outcome of these regulations to increase the abundance of wild cutthroat in southeast Alaska with the expectation of more liberal bag limits in the future. Research has shown that the single best regulation to ensure healthy populations of cutthroat trout is one which will allow all female cutthroat to spawn at least one time.