There are some fishing trips that are terrible. There are some that are enjoyable, but not enough to be clearly remembered a year later. There are some that are good enough that the memories will likely stick with you for many years. And then there are some that hold such significance that it is hard to imagine ever forgetting about them. My most recent trip was of the sort that I cannot envision ever forgetting about it.

For those of you who don't like reading, I apologize, but you probably want to stop reading now. I am generally not one to post one paragraph reports, rather, I like describing what I do in enough detail that people enjoy reading what I have written, feeling some of the excitement that I felt while out fishing, and still come away with some good knowledge to apply on their own fishing trips. That being said, read on if you can handle it. Here goes.

I met up with fellow member, Jonb, after work on Monday and we booked it out to some new territory that neither of us had fished before. We both agreed that we wanted to keep the location a secret, but are more than willing to share the rest of the details of the trip. After a long drive which took us deep into the kind of territory that makes western Washington so beautiful, we arrived at our trout stream of choice and Jonb was greeted with the welcome sight of a fish that was at least 14" long completely clearing the surface of the water in our starting hole. I let Jonb have first crack at the hole and he started working the water with his fly gear, getting a take right off the bat. I on the other hand chose to go with a spinning setup (although I did bring my fly rod) and selected a size 0 copper Vibrax. We worked the starting hole for a while but had no other action and decided to move downstream.

Unfortunately, moving downstream resulted in us finding water that was simply too cloudy to fish (although we tried for about 20 minutes), so we turned back around and headed upstream again. By the time we got back to fishing our starting hole, I had switched over to a 1/16oz black Roostertail with a silver blade. I started working the bottom of the hole with the spinner while Jonb headed to the top end with his fly gear. This particular hole was deep enough and fast enough right in the center that it was difficult to get my spinner down into the strike zone. Jonb suggested that I try letting the spinner quarter out in front of me, rather than bringing it downstream. Casting cross current and letting the weight take the spinner down, I reeled up the slack line and gave the rod tip a pop to get the blade kicking. I had placed this particular cast just in front of a large submerged boulder, hoping that my spinner would swing right along side it and into the deep and calm water on the down stream side. Sure enough, it did just that, and no sooner did that happen than a big bull trout, a nice fat fish in the 16" range, nailed the spinner and proceeded to put a much welcome bend into my rod while running upstream and downstream and in general just not wanting to come in for a landing. The fish did finally tire though and I was able to bring it in for some victory shots before sliding the small single point barbless hook from its mouth and sending it back to the depths.

Continuing upstream, we began to see more and more action from trout in the 6"-8" range while stopping to fish the likely looking pools in between log crossings, river wading, traversing stair step rapids and a little bit of bush whacking. My silver and black Roostertail ended up being the killer lure of the day, I would say predominantly due to the clarity of the water, the overcast sky and the fact that no direct sunlight was reaching the water we were fishing. Eventually Jonb started throwing small spinners with his fly gear, and after I offered him a split shot to help get his spinner down into the depths, he too began getting action from the many many trout that were inhabiting this body of water. At first we were thinking they were resident rainbows, but upon closer examination of some of the more colorful specimens we caught, we both became convinced that they were actually redband trout. The parr marks were generally a deep indigo blue, the red slashes on the sides of the fish were very vibrant with well defined edges, the bodies had a lemony yellow tint to them, especially towards the belly, the fins were tipped with white and there were no red slashes under the jaws.

We continued working our way upstream. I stuck with my black and silver Roostertail and Jonb eventually switched to skating a size 8 adams across the surface. As soon as he made the switch to the dry fly he began getting much more action, and at one hole in particular I witnessed him get about 6 bites in about 10 casts with that setup. We were having a great time on the water, but the daylight was starting to fade and we wanted to be back to the car in time to fish our starting hole one last time before the light gave out. On the way back down we briefly decided to stop and fish a pool that we had gone right past on the way up. I'm definitely glad that we did. This particular pool was difficult to fish with a downstream or a quartering method due to the way the water was flowing and the rock structure. Pretty much my only option was to cast my spinner to the downstream end of the pool, let it sink to the bottom, and then bring it back up and let it hang in the current as I slowly retrieved it. This is not my first choice method when spinner fishing, but for this particular pool it proved to be exactly what was needed. My spinner only sat in the current for about one second before a big a beautiful 11" redband nailed the lure and proceeded to go crazy, darting left and right and headshaking. If we had had any doubt that these fish were redbands before, it was all removed once I got a good look at this fish. The yellow tinting on its flanks was unlike anything I had seen before, not to mention the fact that it was 11" long (which would certainly be an adult fish given the water we were fishing) but still had some of its parr marks.

Continuing back towards the car, we crossed to the downstream side of the starting hole and I decided to make a few casts into the tailout region before crossing the water to more easily fish the pool from the opposite bank. It was during my first or second cast up into the tailout, using a slow downstream retrieve, that I hooked into what is now my personal best bull trout. It didn't hit hard at first, just clamping onto the lure the way bull trout seem to do, but after setting that hook and feeling the weight at the other end of the line I knew that I had a big fish on. Right at the beginning of the fight it came back downstream towards me a bit and I could see it head shaking underwater and was still in shock as to how big of a fish I had just hooked using my tiny trout gear. I got my drag loosened up and the fish took off upstream, staying deep and unwilling to come back down to where I was standing. As the fish started to tire I was able to bring it in close enough to confirm that it was indeed a very good sized bull. I tried to tail it, but the fish still had some fight left and quickly swam back to the main flow in the middle of the stream. I was finally able to get it in though and spent a moment just looking at the thing, still in awe of how incredible it looked and the fact that I had hooked it on my trout gear, the same exact setup that 6" redbands were hitting. Jonb quickly taped it, with a reading of about 23.5" inches. I estimate that it was in the 4# to 4.5# range. What a fight it was on a trout rod with 5# test leader!

After taking pictures and, in general, feeling pretty ecstatic, we sent the fish back on its way and packed up and left. Our totals for the day were 16 redbands landed between the two of us (ranging from 5" to 11"), one whitefish at about 11", a bull at about 16" and a bull at about 23". The top producing methods were small spinners (black and silver was working awesome) presented slowly near the bottom (downstream retrieves, quartering out and letting the spinner sit in the current), as well as a size 8 adams skated over the surface.

Tight lines!

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