Bull Trout Trip VI

We were on the crystal clear waters of the Metolius Saturday morning at about 6:45. The days started out a little chilly and overcast but the clouds were slowly moving off and it was looking like it would turn out to be a beautiful day. As we suited up at the car, the usual playful trash-talking ensued. I had my waders on and rod rigged up before Bret did, so as I walked toward the water I made the comment, "I'll have fish-on before you even get your boots wet." All in good fun, of course. I began fishing while Bret tied on his dropper fly and what do you know; indicator down, hook set and.... "Fish On!" I landed and released (no photo) a small (14 inch) bull trout before my partner had even finished his knot. I'll go ahead and take bragging rights for calling it as well as I did, but in all truthfulness, that fish was going to hit the first fly that bumped him in the nose that day. I just got lucky. As for the rest of the day...

We saw a pretty consistent "on and off" pattern throughout the day, meaning the fish came on and then turned off 5 minutes later. Changing flies regularly kept the fish coming back for more and between the two of us we hooked maybe 13 or 14 fish - a good day on the Metolius. My second fish was a dandy! I was fishing the lower section of the B99 hole when, no further out in front of my than my rod tip, a large bull trout rose and gulped down an emerger of some kind or some aquatic insect. We had seen and heard fish taking flies, but we had not seen any evidence of a hatch. I stayed with my deep-6 egg and red serendipity dropper and started casting just up stream so that my flies drifted right where I had seen this fish. On the fourth cast my indicator stopped and I gave a sharp set in a down-stream direction. Fish On! The big boy played the "log-on-the-bottom" game for the first minute or so and then put his shoulders into and started to have his way with me. These fish are so powerful! Sometimes they will just put you into your backing in one long, drag-screaming run down below the bridge and around the corner, but more often they will hunker down until they see the fisherman. Then they start moving. This fish took about 10 minutes to land. There's a stump and some large tree branches near where I like to land fish and this fish tried like the devil to get ion there. I was lucky enough to keep him out long enough to get his head into the net. We figure he was about 28 inches, and somewhere between 8 and 9 lbs.

Next up - Mr. Redside: Not a great photo, but I just cant pass up a chance to get a shot of even a small Metolius River rainbow. Wild as can be, these fish take to the air instantly, and make runs comparable in intensity (but more short-lived) to those of their anadromous cousins, the Steelhead. As you can see, these fish are simply gorgeous. Also, you may be able to tell that by this point in our day of fishing, the sun had burned off all the clouds and it was warming up. This sparked a decent hatch of large, tan caddis flies, and later on we saw some may flies too.
The next (without mentioning the whitefish caught between bull trout) fish was just a bit smaller than the previous bulltrout, but had a little more spunk to him. He also tried to get into the snags but was unsuccessful. I had just changed flies and made the first cast when I hooked up with a large bull trout. Unfortunately those barbless hooks are hard to keep stuck. After that fish came unbuttoned I took another cast in the general area. Immediately I was on again with the same fish or a different fish and was more careful to keep that hook stuck. This bull trout measured 26" and probably weighed 6 or so lbs. The last 25 inch bully I caught and actually weighed was 7 lbs on the dot. Figured this was about the same.

My final fish of the day was another bull trout similar in size the one pictured above. Another bull trout in the 23 - 25 inch range. He put of a good fight but, alas, was no match for the Loomis 9wt. Time was running short on our day of fishing so I decided to let Bret fish and land this one on my own. So, no photograph, but once this fine specimen settled down and realized he was beaten, I was able to pull out the camera and capture some video of the fish on the end of my line while playing him with one hand. Kinda choppy, but here it is - for your viewing pleasure.

And here's a quick clip of the big fish. We thought we were taking photos but the camera was on video mode. Enjoy, and Tight Lines!