Scott Robertson, Micha “Meeks” Kruger and I were right back in the small bays of Lake Billy Chinook early this morning. The meandering high desert reservoir was like glass. The blue sky was hidden behind a light layer of clouds and the temperature was in the 40°s when we launched Scott’s boat.
Things began a bit slow. I think it was the calmness of the lake. Lake fish aren’t comfortable when the surface is glass. Predators from above have far too much advantage. Fortunately, about an hour in a decent breeze started and the lake surface was altered. Soon after, the bull trout made their presence. Once they arrived, we all hooked up and landed our first fish of the day. And all our fish were big.
When I say all the fish were big, I actually mean huge. Meeks and Scotts first fish each measured 28”. We measured carefully because at first glance we thought we might have the monster 30 inchers. The holy grail fish. And we are not going to eyeball our first pinnacle fish and call it good. When we get one it will be legit. But the giants were a bit short.
My second fish was even bigger and when the gorgeous bull hit the net we thought again we had it. But no. The beast appeared bigger because of its tremendous girth. This time, a half inch under.
We moved around from small bay to small bay. We hit the nooks and crannies and some were places we never hit before. Every spot had fish. This will sound crazy but the action was so fast and furious, there was no time to rest. If you were trying to rest, it turned into netting. Constant netting!
I’ll give another example of how fast the fishing was. We had several double hook ups. That’s not really a big deal. Doubling up is common on any good day. But on one occasion, Scott had a fat hard fighting 28 incher that took him five minutes to land. During his fight I landed and released two, a 22” and a 26”. Meeks stuck his fly out there also and landed one so fat he couldn’t get his hands around it. Today’s bull trout fishing was absurd!
I’ll leave the bull trout fishing at that. Today was unbelievable and I am most certain none of the three of us will ever experience a bite like this again. Perhaps it was perfect barometric pressure, maybe the bull trout are fattening up in the shallows before heading deep to hide from the summer heat, or maybe it was one of those miracles that happen in fly fishing. Honestly, I don’t care. Today happened. We were there at the right time and none of us will ever forget the best bull trout day of our lives.
There’s no fishing for us tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll deliver a full day of presentations at the Fin & Fire Fly Shop. Work is the real reason I’m in Oregon this week. All this wonderful fishing before and after is the good fortune of the occupation I’m in. If you’re in Bend, OR, the day is free. At 10 AM I’m doing my PowerPoint talk, “Improve Your Fishing Photography”, at noon its “Tricks and Tactics for the World’s Best Flats”, at 2 PM its “Fly Fishing for Carp – A 20lb Fish Near Home” and the last one is at 4, “Streamer Tactics for More and Larger Trout”. Hope to see you there!
Be sure to keep tabs on my IG at @jeffcurrier65
Bend Oregon now added to places i need to fish!! Super cool.