After a great trip North with Muzz last year to catch Bull Trout, I was planning to take a year off and go back next year. But when I had to cancel a trip to Oregon and ended up with 2 flight credits, it didn't take long for the pristine waters inhabited by Bull Trout to begin calling me back. On a blistering Thursday, I flew to Provo where Weston, who was hankering for his first Bull Trout, picked me up and we started the long drive North.
We arrived well after midnight, quickly set up camp and crashed for a few hours. After a quick breakfast, we drove to the area where I caught my first Bull last year. We were two weeks earlier than last year, so I wasn't sure the fish would be that far upriver yet. We found two nice fish in the first hole, but they were not interested in eating, so we hiked upriver to the hole where we caught the majority of our fish last year.
I climbed the bank and walked the hole that held at least 100 fish last year, but saw only 1 Bull chasing a small cutthroat. I was anxious to get Weston his first Bull, so I told him where the fish was and the fish took a minnow pattern on his first cast.
High fives were exchanged and we made the decision to go downriver in search of more fish. At the first pool we stopped at, we found only 2 fish glued to the bottom, whereas, last year the hole looked like this:
We hiked several miles downriver and found only a few fish in each pool who seemed tired from their long journey upriver and disinterested in our offerings. I lost interest in the Bulls and started catching quite a few cutts on Ben Smith's Mini-hopper:
Meanwhile, Weston kept after the Bulls and eventually hooked into another.
The next morning, hoping to find more fish, we decided to fish the lower section of the river. After hiking approximately 4 miles, we found a nice pool with 20-30 bulls stacked up. The water was swift and the hole was deep, so we fastened several large split shots to our leader trying to get our patterns down to the fish. I was able to hook up with one fish and shed the Bull skunk:
Unfortunately, I hit my 8 weight NRX with one of the split shot while casting and it broke the rod at the top of the third section. I had a back up in Weston's vehicle, but I was forced to fish most of the day without a 1/4 of my rod. This turned out to be the day where I had the hot hand and I lost several large fish to break offs (and all of the only pattern that was working) because I had no tip to protect the 15 lb. tippet. Still, we managed to bring quite a few fish to hand:
After hiking so far on in and out of the canyon section the day before, we decided to take a break from Bullies and go visit another water for some dry fly cutthroat fishing the next day. We had a blast that day and caught several nice fish:
I don't get the chance to fish dry flies much and I really enjoyed it and using this rod on the trip. It was a refreshing change to slow down the casting stroke and focus on a gentle presentation, in contrast to slinging heavily weighted streamers for the Bullies. I used an AZ Wanderings Uni Thread Furled Leader greased with Gink for dries and nymphs on this trip and it performed flawlessly.
We had to leave the next day by 11:30, so we hit the trail an hour before daylight to maximize our fishing time. I was excited to be fishing for Bullies with a 9 foot rod again. Weston was quick to hook up when we arrived at the river:
On this day, we both had our chances to have the hot hand for awhile and we caught several nice fish in a short time.
At approximately 10 a.m., Weston was rigging up after breaking off a snag, so I stepped down to the section of water he had been fishing to throw a few casts. Unbeknownst to me, he had been trying to get a monster he could see to eat for about a half hour. I could see that there were several large fish about 60 feet out, but I didn't see the monster.
On my second cast, I was able to place my flies about 10 yards upriver from the pod of fish and I swung my two streamer rig right into the group of large fish below. As the flies drifted downriver, I saw a large fish turn and take my white streamer, so I strip set the hook and it immediately bolted upriver peeling line off my reel. When the fish reached the top of the pool, he reversed and started downriver for the white water. I was able to pull him over close to the bank and Weston jumped in the water to net him. This was our first good look at the fish and Weston recognized it as the monster.
The fish bolted back upstream again to the head of the pool and then back downstream toward the white water two more times. Weston and I kept scrambling up and down the bank chasing it and trying to keep it out of the white water, where I was certain it would break off. Twice, I had it close to the bank and Weston's net, before it bolted back to deep water and the powerful current. I had coaxed the fish to within a few feet of the net and Weston when I heard a loud ripping noise and 3/4 of my rod went flying into the water. I looked down to see my rod broken just above the butt section and the fish started peeling line as it bolted upriver. I tried to grab the top part of my rod to protect my tippet, but it was out in the middle of the river with the fish.
I only had the first stripping guide to control the line with and with no tip to protect the tippet, the fish snapped my 15 pound fluorocarbon tippet about 10 seconds after the rod broke. I instantly realized that I had just lost the fish of my lifetime. I have looked at a lot of Bull Trout on the Internet, and I have never seen a Bull that big. Weston and I agreed that the fish was around 40" long, much bigger than the fish we had been catching and somewhere in the 20 pound range. I came on the trip with two 8 weights and I had now broken both of them. I laid down on the bank in a stupor for awhile staring up at the sky while Weston continued to fish and then I slowly started packing my stuff away for the long hike out of the canyon. It's almost been a week now and I have come to a few conclusions: 1) it was a privilege to be connected with that monster for even a brief time; 2) I don't think that I'll ever hook into a Bull that size for the rest of my life; 3) next time I'm bringing a 10 weight or a switch rod for the big holes with the big Bulls; and 4) I will remember every detail of my encounter with the fish, long after I have forgotten the details of other notable fish that I've actually caught. It is the ones who get away, that haunt us the most.
