For as long as I can remember bull trout have been on my bucket list. It's a fish that has been on my mind for a long time due mostly to its aggressiveness and size. And finally, after years of thinking about it, I traveled out to Oregon to go trout fishing for the coolest fish on earth!
Bull trout are some of the coolest and most predatory fish on earth. Reaching lengths of 40 inches or more, these fish have captured the imagination and occupied the dreams many anglers across the US. They’re apex predators in the rivers they live and they’re so aggressive they’ll try to eat an average sized trout off your line while you’re trying to get it to the net… trust me. Which is why when I got the invite from my buddy William to join him on a small bull trout trip I couldn’t turn it down. This is the trip dreams are made of. Welcome back to another video.
So for those of you who don’t know, bull trout have been listed as a threatened species under the endangered species act. This is due almost entirely to habitat fragmentation like dams, poor water quality or water management, and human development, but what it means is that these fish are off limits to anglers in much of their native range. And in the places they’re doing well and are plentiful enough to allow anglers to target them, catch and release is a must. So if you ever decide to change these illusive beasts, make sure you treat them with the upmost respect.
So at this point in the day the bull trout had been non existent. There were some huge hatches coming off, as Will just showed off there, but the only fish we saw was a suspiciously large redband trout.. at least that’s what we think it was. But the thing about streamer fishing is you can’t expect every good spot to produce a fish… and to be honest with you I had already started second guessing how many bull trout we’d even see on this trip. So when my first Bull Trout EVER came out of a log and engulfed my streamer neither one of us could believe it.
Believe it or not I had I somehow caught 2 bull trout in quick succession. The two fish were caught not more than 30 minutes apart, and to make things even cooler as Will and I hopped up on to the trail to continue fishing were greeted by this fresh set of tracks. Yep, a mountain lion had made its way down the same trail the night prior, reminding us that we were in a pretty wild place. But we continued on, throwing streamers at every log jam we could assuming that was the pattern the fish were on.
This continued on for a long time… bushwacking down to a hole to make cast… after cast… after cast in some of the prettiest pools of blue water you’ll ever see. But the bull trout were non existent and after a while the fish I had seen at the beginning of the day almost seemed like figments of my imagination, and my focus started to slip away. I started to just enjoy how insane the river looked and how incredibly beautiful the country was, something I had skipped over in my mind as I was hyper focused on the bull trout for the first 3/4 of the day. It’s some truly wild country that I hope everyone gets to experience. So as the day came to an end there wasn’t a single part of me who felt like it wasn’t one of the best days of fishing I had experienced in a long time.
I hope you guys enjoyed day 1 of this bull trout adventure!! Day 2 and 3 will be coming out next week! #fishing #outdoors #flyfishing #adventure #nature #troutfishing #sports
