Fishing Report 9-25-05

I got a call from my buddy Tom Staley this evening. I had forgotten that he had taken two of his kids up to Billy Chinook for a shot at staging bulls up in the Metolius Arm. I didn't write about it last year because I wanted to keep it under wraps until it was happening this year. It looks like it is time. Tom, Jarred and Bob didn't get up the arm until around 3:30 this afternoon. I think Tom was going off what we had experienced last year, which I will get into after I cover Tom's outing.

Without divulging every detail, I will say that the bulls are staging right now way up the arm but still in the lake. Tom landed (5) bulls and kept the largest (3). He has a large family and they do love to eat fish. His biggest (2) went 10 and 7 LB. and the smaller fish was around 5 LB. The (2) other bulls they released were around 2-3 Lb. I should have some photos soon from Tom and will post them when available. Their best lure was a J-13 Rapala and most of their bigger fish came flatlining. He did get a few on the downriggers as well. Great outing guys and congrats to Bob and Jarred on the big ones!

Last year I stumbled onto it purely by accident. Steve Kelly and I were testing my planer boards for Pend Oreille and also some lures for Optimum Baits. They wanted to see how they would hold up at depths on the downriggers. We ended up in the arm and got into the bulls to the tune of (19) fish in (3) hours the first time up. It was a combination of depth control and lures we hadn't used before. Let me put it this way, we had trouble getting the second dowrigger down before we had a fish on the first. This was no fluke and the following (2) trips produced catches of (16) and (17) bulls in less than (4) hours a trip over the next week. This is the most phenomenal bull trout numbers we have ever put up. Most of the bulls were 4-9 Lb. but we had a couple on that we never saw that felt much bigger than that.

The window to get into these fish is very short but quite certain. If anyone is interested in doing even a half day trip the time is now. We have about two weeks and the best part will be over. I have bookings for browns tomorrow the 26th and then again on Oct. 6th. Contact me now to book a trip for bull trout that you will never forget!

Screamin' Drags, Rick