I guess I impressed Dennis and Tim enough with the 10 LB. bull that we got into last trip, that they were game for another round. It was the only bite and fish of the day, but big fish do leave an impression. Actually they are a couple of neat guys that were just using me for an excuse for getting away from work and their demanding jobs as managers for ODOT.

We got lucky and hit the weather window perfectly.....warming to 55 with a chance of wind in the afternoon. The wind held off and we had a beautiful, textbook spring day for Central Oregon. We made a trip up the Crooked Arm first because the bull trout fishing this spring and been sporadic at best. My fears that the adult bull trout fishing might be tough this year had come true. We are not locating significant schools of the bigger bulls at all. Just a random fish here and there. The creel census from the dock surveys has confirmed that the numbers of bigger fish caught has been down by miles compared to last year, which was my best spring ever for the big bulls.

The water up the Crooked was blown out, probably from increased flows down the river from Bowman as run off is starting to kick in. The reservoir is at full pool right now. Watch out for floating debris if you get out on the lake soon. There are a lot of floating logs that you won't see until it is too late and the prop is damaged, at the least. Been there, done that!

Turned out that we didn't get bit up the arm and decided to make the move to the Metolius. I pulled up on the "thousand yard" run and dropped the kicker to warm her up. About half way down the run, where a large number of bulls have been taken, we watched the rod bounce hard and Tim jumped up to get tight onto what turned out be a nice fish. The big bull hung back for a little while and then gave some ground as Tim kept the pressure on. Our first glimpse near the boat prompted Dennis to get the net out for me as we knew this fish was over 10! After several runs by and around the boat, (bull trout often put up a good tussle at the boat) I slid the net under a gorgeous, thick-shouldered bull. The iridescent blue hue that is characteristic in many bull trout, irradiated from her side in the full sun. It the net, she was a solid 14 LB. which nets out to 10 LB! The bull came on a jointed "Mikey" in aurora-black, set on the rigger at 10 feet in 25 feet of water. How more fair could things have been; Dennis caught a 10 the last trip and Tim got his turn this outing. For the rest of the day we joked about whose was biggest....they were probably clones except for the coloration. I may need to take them out one more time to break the tie! Ha! Ha!

We managed (3) more bulls up to around 3 LB. to cap the day and headed in just as the wind was starting to stiffen a little. It was a good day considering few people have been catching bulls at all. I will be guiding for about 2-3 more weeks or so and if you would like a shot at a trophy bull this year, now is the time.

Screamin' Drags,
Rick