caught my first Bull trout this week!

[Brendo]

Word is getting around about the Hoot Owl closures on the Clark fork, Blackfoot, Bitteroot, and starting tomorrow just about all the rivers in south west Montana. with this in mind ive been fishing the Hollywood hole on the Clark fork after midnight, and the many available creeks nearby that still offer cold water. One of those creeks is very well known and near Missoula, and after fishing every day for nearly a year now it finally threw me a bone. on my first cast I caught one of the biggest fish of my life, and by the end of the day i caught 3 bull trout. unbelievable stuff.
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[SeanO]

congrats on the bullies!

They are cool fish with very interesting life history strategies!

Sucks they are getting harder to find these days. Any guidance on what worked for them?

Take care,

[Brendo]

on specifically targeting them double articulated streamers that look like a whitefish. dark yellow/ bronze on top and white on the belly. in this area my closest run ins with the Bulls were them smashing poor juvenile fish while fighting them to shore. i really got lucky with these guys though, 2 of them took a sz 16 nymph ive been tying up as a general search pattern. the first was on a pearl white streamer after i saw him chew up an 8 inch white fish i had caught.

heres the nymph, it works well out here and is one of my go to flys year round.
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[JD]

Very cool. Still trying to get one myself. Once native to CA, now considered extinct, so you have to leave the state before you can get a chance, and I have not managed to land one...yet. Maybe this fall. Congratulations!