8-6-23 Oregon Bulls
The summer heat back home brought trout fishing trips to a halt, however an unexpected surprise in Oregon led me on a pretty epic adventure. Sometimes you randomly cross paths with people and it almost seems like it was all meant to happen, this is definitely one of those times.
We had 7 days in Oregon for my sister in laws wedding, I was tasked to book a fly fishing trip for the groom, his father, my father in law, and myself. We had a float trip planned with 2 boats, but a month before the wedding, the groom and his father backed out, and my father in law said he only had a half day. Our trip got changed to a half day walk & wade. No need to elaborate on the trip, it ended up being a fishing trip on a stocked stream with 0 wild trout. We caught plenty of fish, but my own fault for not clarifying with the fly shop what I wanted to go after. I would have much rather spent a day going after wild fish and catching none, than spend a day at the outflow of a hatchery catching stockers. But lesson learned, next time I’ll be much more vocal about it when booking a guide.
The previous day my wife went horseback riding and one of the locals told her about a great stream 15 minutes away with wild trout. I did some research and realized it had wild bull trout, which I didn’t even know you could fish for until I called a few fly shops and they all confirmed. This was a great surprise and as luck would have it, there were still a few open time slots I could sneak away to fish.
I did not have any of my fly fishing equipment so I went to a local fly shop and rented a rod and some waders. I got some great intel from a few people and was able to locate a few nice bull trout. All I had were 3 big zonker streamers, I tried all kinds of presentations but none of the fish seemed to care. I only had two hours and I couldn’t get a take so I packed up and called it a day. On my way back, I was thinking how some really large nymphs tightlined might have worked great in that water type.
I stopped at the fly shop, picked up some sighter, tippet, and a bunch of heavy nymphs with plans to return in a few days. I ended up going back 2 days later but only to take the kids on a hike and explore the river a little more. We ran into another fisherman in the parking lot and we discussed the river and the bull trout. He seemed pretty knowledgeable and also a genuinely nice person. After chatting for a few minutes, I took the kids down a trail and wished the fisherman good luck for the day. If I ran into him again on the trail, I was going to see if he wanted to fish together later in the week but we never crossed paths again.
On the day of the wedding, I was at the venue early to take some family pictures. Once all the photos were finished, I went to get a drink at the bar and heard someone say “I remember you from the hike yesterday.” It was the fisherman we talked to on the stream, his name was Ty and coincidentally he was the bartender for the wedding. Not sure what the odds of that happening are, but it was pretty crazy and we agreed to meet on the stream the next morning around 5:30am.
Battling a pretty wicked hangover, I drug my ass out of bed and got to the river around 5:40, my new friend was there rigging up some rods and even had a spare for me to use which was much better than the rental I got from the fly shop. I used the rental reel, which I rigged with a euro nymph set up so that I could get to the bottom very quickly in the fast and deep water. When we got to the hole I noticed some really large bull trout going crazy in the water, it wasn’t until we got closer to the water that we realized those were actually otters going after the fish. They quickly disappeared when they saw us approach and the bull trout slowly started working back into the run.
The fish were in a lie about 8 feet deep and the current was quick, so I tied on two large stoneflies and started fishing. It didn’t take long before I hooked the first fish, it was not a very friendly area to land a fish, so I tried to overpower it as quick as I could to land it fast. Unfortunately I snapped that fish off as well as another one about 15 minutes later. It was already a win for me, I’ve never fished for bull trout and I was able to hook 2 in short order. From then on, I didn’t really care what happened the rest of the day.
It started raining and we lost visibility, but I continued to fish and monitor my sighter. One drift in particular, I thought I saw a pretty good sized bull trout eat right in the general area where my flies where, but my sighter never moved so I didn’t set the hook. After about a half second the sighter stopped and I gave it a solid hook set. I could see that big bull trout shaking its head as I started pulling it up to the surface. I kept the fish close for about a minute and then I really got to see how powerful these trout truly are. The fish took a large run about 70 yards down river and across to the other side. It looked like I could wade across in that one spot so I confirmed with my friend Ty and decided to go for it. The fish stopped in some slack water so I felt confident that I could land it once I got below it. I was wrong…As soon as I got close, the fish darted downstream and just started ripping line. Looking downriver, I knew there was no way I could get anywhere close to the fish so I tightened the drag and snapped it off. 0-3 but that was an incredible battle with a powerful fish.
It was about 8:30 and I had until noon to fish, so I went back at it, hoping to see if I could finally see a bull trout up close. The rain got a little heavier and fog started to form over the water. We continued to fish the areas that the bull trout were holding in. I would cast pretty far upstream to make sure my flies were down low by the time they hit the prime water. After a bunch of casts and fly changes, my sighter stopped again. I couldn’t believe it, again I felt the head shakes as I pulled the fish up from the bottom. This fish gave me a little bit of an advantage compared to the last one. First, it wasn’t as big (but still a great fish) and secondly, it decided to run upstream instead of downstream. This helped me keep pressure and tire the fish out pretty quickly. We were fishing on a ledge and Ty was below me with the net. I could not see him, so I was anxiously pulling the fish toward the bank, I knew it was close, but didn’t hear a thing from Ty so I did my best to stay calm and just keep steady pressure toward the bank. As I got a few more feet of line on the reel, I gave the rod another steady pull toward the bank, I finally heard Ty yell that we got him! What an awesome feeling, got my first bull trout and likely my last.
Ty was fishing streamers most of the morning and was nice enough to leave me in a prime spot until I finally landed a fish. He switched over to the nymph rig and that’s when things got crazy. He hooked into a whitefish and as he was fighting it, the bull trout went crazy and started attacking the white fish. As I was looking down into the water, I saw a bull trout doing big headshakes back and forth, about 2’ away from the white fish. I started yelling to Ty that he got a double, a whitefish on one fly and a bull trout ate the large stonefly dropper! Fortunately, the whitefish came off and Ty was able to battle the bull trout alone. I grabbed the net and felt more pressure trying to net his fish than catching my own. He did a great job fighting the fish and about 1 minute later I was able to scoop it into the net. What a trip.
Sometimes things just happen for a reason, one minute you randomly run into a guy on a river that likes to fly fish. A few days later we’re taking shots of bourbon at a wedding and catching bull trout the next morning. Doesn’t get much more random but also incredible than that. That might have been my last bull trout, but definitely not the last time I fish with Ty.