Quote Originally Posted by The Chronicler View Post
Great story Scott. Never fished for bull trout. Sounds like a really big fish. Hope you go back again and hook him again.
My home water is not a place to fish for bull trout. There are usually some throughout the system but it seems the larger ones are much lower down than I usually fish, and maybe into the Clearwater for the best part of the year.

If you were to fish for bull trout, you would want to be fishing streamers and not dry flies. I've had six other bull trout, ranging from 15" to 22", all on a PSC and during the late summer when they are starting to migrate upstream to spawn. They are the largest year round resident fish in the system, and some are bigger than some of the stealhead and chinook that make runs up this river. Except for the chinook, the bulls are the strongest fish I've caught, inch for inch and pound for pound. I seriously doubt that I could have landed the 22" bull trout on 4X tippet.

In over 400 days fishing dry flies on my home water, mostly the large FEBs mentioned above, this is the only bull trout that has even hit a dry, to the best of my knowledge. I was talking to a highly regarded outfitter / guide in town yesterday and he was quite surprised that a bull trout had hit a dry fly, but he agreed that every detail of my experience was consistent with how bull trout normally react to being hooked.

It would be fair to say that my experience the other day will prove absolutely unique for me regardless how many more days I spend fishing dries on my home water.

John

P.S. Jeff - not fishing the CGR 3 wt glass that day. Although that would probably would not have made any difference. With a strong enough leader and tippet, whatever would be strong enough, I would likely have straightened the hook or eventually landed the fish.