I had the pleasure of taking MSG Brian Wheaton and his wife, Michelle, out for my last guide trip of 2008. What a day it was! We met at the ramp around 8:00 a.m. and made the trek up toward the Metolius River to look for returning bulls after the spawn. The weather was perfect with no wind and 80 degrees to bask in.

I pulled up at the buoy line in 40 feet of water and set up to run two rods on the riggers all the way up to where the river dumps in. We would be working water from 20-40 feet and running plugs in the bottom 10 feet. The hot plugs were two of my favorite bull trout lures. The 4 in. Lyman in blk/slvr and the TX Minnow in a kokanee pattern.

We started hitting fish right away and the bite continued off and on for most of the afternoon. I would actually have to say that it was "on" way more than "off" as I look back on it. We didn't land as many larger bulls as years past but we did get into them "big-time." By the end of the afternoon, we had caught and released 26 bull trout and that is a record for me on guided trips. The best bull of the trip came when Michelle had hooked up on a smaller bull and I noticed that the other rod started bouncing when I had slowed up to let her play her fish. Brain grabbed the light weight 6'6" Shimano Crucial bass rod and the game was on. I could tell the way his rod loaded this was a nice fish. After several tough bull dog runs, we finally got the 9 LB. bull up top and I netted it for a photo op. As you can see, this was a really healthy bull.

About an hour later, Brian stuck another nice bull going 6.75 LB. to cap his day. Michelle caught a few in the 3-3.5 LB. range for her best bulls to make it one heck of a day at LBC. It seems like there wasn't too much time spent that we weren't fighting a bull trout.

Hopefully, I will get into some brown trout action later this fall. Check back for the report.

Tight Lines,
Rick