120 HOURS IN BULL TROUT COUNTRY (quest to find the elusive bull trout)

this week we're heading off the grid to chase after one of the most aggressive freshwater fish in north america we're going to one of the places that i read about in a scientific journal that was posted in 2006. [Music] i called multiple people i tried to get some intel on bull trout fishing in this area and nobody knows anything about it that i talked to oh my gosh that was a large one [Music] bull trout contrary to their name are not actually trout but rather a species of char native to the pacific northwest they were first reported by dr george suckley in 1859 as selmo confluentis for over a century they were thought to be an inland form of the dolly garden and it wasn't until 1980 when the distinction was made between the two their scientific name salvilinus confluentis roughly translates in latin to mean flowing together this refers to their life cycle of traveling up and down their river systems and into the confluence of their headwater streams to spawn and it's not like go up into the first run in a river it's like go up 90 miles to the highest point of this river in order to tell this story correctly we need to go back a few years in 2019 brian introduced me to his friends adam and steve of blue line co they had been planning a fishing trip to canada and invited me to come along at the time i was pretty unfamiliar with bull trout and really didn't know what to expect i soon explained to my parents that i'd be leaving the country first time ever with two strangers from alabama [Music] [Music] all morning we were just killing bullies sorry let me let me restate that the trip had been a success and we had all found our new favorite fish the following year we made another attempt to fish for them this time in montana unfortunately though we came back empty-handed it seemed that the bulls had already moved upstream to get ready for spawn the more we obsessed over these fish the more we started to learn about their history and why they are so protected in the u.s historically their native range stretched from northern california to southern alaska but over the last century dams saltation from irrigation and human expansion have greatly reduced their numbers you know there are some places in the southern portion of their range where they're just gone around the turn of the 20th century settlers began introducing non-native fish to these river systems bull trout were considered a nuisance because of their predatory nature and impact on popular but non-native game fish at one point there was even a bounty placed on bull trout tales in canada to rid them of their waters bull trout are now protected under the endangered species act in the u.s and many states have special regulations in place to help protect their populations because they require such a pristine habitat to survive they are a leading indicator species for stream health you have to put in a lot of effort to get back to them because they're in these just really really remote places it makes me want to go that extra couple miles into the back country and like find these things having struck out the year prior we were determined to give bull trout another shot we are always seeking out adventures that bring us to places that we wouldn't otherwise go to and bull trout offered that opportunity we looked at a lot of different locations everything from montana all the way to oregon and washington and picked the one that i thought was going to be the best it's important to note that there are streams in the u.s where it is illegal to target bull trap so in researching where we were going to go we had to make sure we were up to speed with all of the local regulations with the location picked out and a game plan in place it was time to get to work brian and i will be flying into salt lake to meet up with adam and then our first leg of the journey would be a 12 hour road trip up north well so i decided to bring a little bit of good some good chi for us that's the original a bud that you saw from the northern native series that one's not getting fish because it's been chewed up a little too much and the hooks are pretty dull now and uh your hair's falling out of it but we had to bring it if we were doing a bull trap trip i just feel like i shouldn't go anywhere without it so we've got you know five days to try to dial dial this in we've got a bunch of different floats planned if nothing else i bet there are chubbies that eat dry flies maybe cut throat that eat cherries that eat dry that's where we're going yes [Music] [Music] well uh it got a little cold on us up here it was really hot when we left salt lake it was 106. so uh our boat has had has experienced some shrinkage here so uh a very nice couple on the interstate flagged us down and sure enough the boat is kind of uh hanging hanging off the back a little bit all right it's been a long day we made it to a truck stop after about a 10-hour drive today so we're just gonna stop here for the night it's pretty late we're gonna get good night's rest we got a big week ahead of us hoping to get after tomorrow it sounds like there's like 12 fires in our area there was some question about whether this road that we need to take to get to where we're going is going to be closed there's a fire kind of in between where us and these bull trout so i don't want to let that stand in my way we're trying to figure out if we can drive down this road because the road just north of here is closed [Music] we saw a sign just back there that said act would say access closed uh yeah ahead or something not it doesn't say anything specific about this area yet that is bad ass we're here holy we're not here we're not here but we're kind of here oh we're somewhat here [Music] [Music] so we're finally getting eyes on the river we've been been driving for probably 12 hours total at this point and uh yeah a lot of travel almost a full day's travel to get here all right there's a bully in here we got we gotta look at that yep pop out in there so glad we didn't like just launch blindly this morning obviously going to a new river like you want to know what's below you for sure i mean that's the logical thing to do and uh but knowing us we don't always do logical things we're here found a campground that has a little uh trail that goes down the river that we can launch out we may or may not have tied it one or two flies for the trip we'll see see how they do little bull trouty snacks [Music] yes [Music] today the goal really is just it's kind of like a scouting day we're just trying to see the river we're on kind of late this is not ideally when we want to get on but trying to see the runs see if we can find some fish move some fish oh come on come on eat it eat it there he is yes good cudi dude sweet it's a good cut oh there we go that's a good fish you shown nymphing is fly fishing not sure this might get a little dicey folks eat the hopper oh there he is this is probably one of the better ones we've got today that's a nice looking cutthroat right there do you approve adam sure is i need to try to be as far right as i can around here [Music] well we had one part that got a little tough we had to work really hard for a sec but whether y'all did it or not i don't know i got a little gun shy after after that one so we knew this road goes next to the river the whole way so we're just going to go ahead and take out here there's a couple of spots below us that after a long day of rowing and being on the water just look a little dicey [Music] so we pulled in and there were some folks in this campsite uh before us but this is the only campsite at this campground that you can access the river from as we pulled in we just said hey guys would you mind if we just slid our boat through the middle of your campground down the access to the river folks were extremely nice super cool about it they actually said well you know what we're leaving shortly so these folks ended up giving us a bunch of food we decided to make a really weird version of like chili cheese dogs so we've got burger buns we've got some brats we've got our mountain house and all of this burger meat that we've combined into chili cheese dogs honestly this could be like the worst thing ever it's just whenever you're out it's not though i might go to a roost chris and order this like it's better than their steaks [Music] all right it's about 6 a.m right now we got up real early this morning as you can see we've already got the boat in the water because our campsite is right there from our experience with bull trout in the past we've we've found that early morning is usually the best time to target them it's kind of when they're feeding there's less light they're less exposed and the little fish are a little more vulnerable so we've got some big streamers we're hoping to swing if we don't get any action today we don't see anything we're going to have to kind of switch our our game plan up and and see if we maybe want to try somewhere else fish darting everywhere around here i would say just bump us all the way to the right and we'll just fish this whole middle and i think that's where the deeper stuff might be put on a medium-sized streamer though i thought we could get a good cuddy with this oh oh i don't chase it oh there he is yep first cast dude first cast let's go yeah he chased it down this little cuddy ah yes yes white fish how many miles have we driven for this mini that's a very expensive fish there's a lot of whitefish in this river uh we just nipped one up we don't normally keep fish we decided to keep it we're out here camping we're out here off the off the grid for a couple days we checked the regulations and limits before we headed out uh we know we're allowed to keep a few here per day per person and then we're just going to do a little catch and cook for lunch we can't slack off once you start to slack off it's just like a cancer dude just it just starts growing and you become lazy and start trading cryptocurrency in your grandma's house with that oh i got oh it was a cutthroat 100 but man he crushed it [Music] oh yeah there he is really good cuddy scoop [Music] all right it's all cut [Music] so as we were driving in the water up top was super shallow so we just kind of kept coming in until we started seeing some deeper holes in pockets that might be able to hold some bigger bull trout but the warden just stopped us had a talk with us super nice guy and gave us an intel we asked him a little bit of questions about the bull trout he said that they are up in that really shallow stuff so uh we're gonna finish out our float here and then i think we're gonna head up kind of where we drove through yesterday up in the higher country [Music] just got back here to camp we're kind of getting some stuff packed up no bull trout we caught some cutthroat but we also got into some white fish we decided to do a little catch and cook we've got our whitefish cut up cleaned [Music] pretty good it's literally just white pitch like the name you know like that generic white fish taste like the fillet of fish from mcdonald's [Music] all right well the rain has turned down a little bit we're going to drive up the road about an hour or so and just scout up some of the upper parts that might have a little bit better opportunity right now for volt trout a little bit colder water and then also where some of the tributaries are that we scouted out don't cast over fish trying to get to others but just sneak up like on this edge that's far enough up so that you can get it deep and in some of the ones you may want to get a cast up here and then mend upstream so that it really sinks [Music] [Music] [Music] we've seen about a million fish down here rising so we've got a dry rig set up so we're gonna run that see if we can't catch some of these cuddies because they're just there's a ton of cuddies down here oh dude [Music] there it is little guy a little cuddy [Music] there he is oh that's a better fish dude i got him on the skate [Music] send him on his way [Music] [Music] dude he's giving you the business [Music] that's solid we endured the rain we caught a bunch of cuddies there towards the end of the day hopefully this rain holds off it's not raining right now and we're just looking for that one or two or maybe three big bites for all for all of us i'll include y'all in there but we're looking for those big bites maybe the bull trout will be on the end of our line tomorrow so we'll see you guys in the morning that next day we ended up having just you know we're like let's just fish this section let's just have a cut through a deck so it's our second to last day um there you have it that that's true okay morale was kind of low it was rainy it was raining we've been wet for a day all of our stuff a full 24 hours at this point we tied on like a black chubby just didn't have to really put on anything else that's what we're looking for right there [Music] there he is [Music] [Applause] [Music] and then inside [Music] there we go this is a good cuddy boy guys we got the first boarded trip hostile fruit there are boats out in this river nothing crazy but still a really good sign it's awesome oh my gosh this is just like dream water right here you know all the cats that you put in the right place and all the drips that are good it's like automatic fishing one single chubby right now and just wrecking them [Music] oh my god it's ridiculous i'm gonna go on that far side that soft spot see that rock [Music] there he is that's a good fish chomped it oh look at that dude really nice fish [Music] unreal another one this spot is loaded dude [Music] gosh that's so textbook nice fish [Music] the morale really lifted that day yeah it's kind of cool on fishing trips there's always those moments where everyone's watching someone else fish adam had a really cool eat like right in front of scotty and i and like this fish just somersaulted out of the water oh my gosh that was a large one it was one of those days you get so into the bull trout and you get so we were all getting a little frustrated like come on yeah we've gone all the way out here we're putting all this work in and nothing's happening there's no signs and all this but it's a good day to just you know remind her of like you know what we're out here catching a bunch of cutthroat things could be a lot worse wow look at that one do you wanna know why bull trout fishing is fun it's because they eat cut throat even if you go bull trout fishing if there aren't bull trout you're going to find a lot of cupcakes we were in good spirits so we're like okay let's go to where this game warden said the bull trout are we're passing by the river here and there we're like it just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller we're just like oh my gosh like there's no way there's no way they're up here we've had a pretty long drive to get to kind of where the warden told us would be a good spot to find some bulls um tomorrow's kind of our last chance to really try to get on some we almost gave up on it and we were like kind of walking back and i i was looking down through this little pocket between two trees and sure enough there was a big old tail no one's seen any bulls this trip besides the one that you caught scotty and uh there are three really good sized bulls just sitting here on this rock and it kind of proves that we're in the right zone i'm a little psyched on it yeah i'm kind of happy because it's just it's exactly what we were wanting to see coming up here coming to the biggest hole up here after seeing them in that hole we're running out of light we got to look at this potential float that's four miles below this hole and see like what options we have and if there's any fish in there so like we were running out of light quick let's take a peek we definitely have some bigger water more accessible some easier spots that we can either float or wade but now the question is we're about six miles down river from where we just saw the bulls so now we're going to look and see if we can see some signs of them down through here that's floatable that is money right there basically the plan as of now is uh we're gonna do a float it's gonna probably be a float slash wade because some of the areas are a little skinny it's been about four days now since we've uh we've had service and uh it is it is so nice it's rare to find time away from your phone and away from just all these distractions and so it's just us it's bryant adam and i we're trying to accomplish catching bull trout being out here being able to kind of step back and look at things without any distractions without any social media you kind of get to see things a little more clearly so definitely appreciating the time we've got out here and uh really excited to get on tomorrow we woke up that next morning the last morning ready to crush him we forgot to pick out a takeout point uh last night before it got dark so we found a little campsite here that looks like there might be a trail it's the river this is a makeshift little slide for our boat it's hard up here where no one really floats because there's just there's nothing for boats up here we're just looking and hopefully we can find something this is our best bet right now all right it was definitely cold and we're like okay this is it like we're we found the float and we're like okay they're here [Music] so [Music] on the top of this float was some really really good looking slow holes that bull trout should be in i'd fish like the first four or five holes then scotty got got up in the in the front and there's this like tension in there we're like okay we got we gotta find them you know they have to be in here we caught one fish we had this peak when we saw them the day before we're like yes let's get after it and then after every single hole that morale just started getting lower and lower and lower we were wiped out we were defeated again by the bull trout [Music] that is what we just had to pull the boat through we're so pooped at this point like we we drive up kind of close to where that hole we saw the bulls and we were just laying in the road we couldn't believe we hadn't run into a single decent sized bull trail all the clues from this week had led us to the zone and it seemed too perfect for the fish not to be here so before heading home we decided to try one more spot further upstream we let bryant take the first shot since he was the only one who had never caught a bullet trout so we hiked down we found this little trail that led us right to this whole you know i was i was really nervous because i was like we put in all this work and like the pressure's on yeah the pressure was on and i was i was losing it get like up in this area right here so and cast across and then swing it through that area [Music] [Applause] fish [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] first bully ever [Applause] oh my god i'm shaking right now i almost lost it there i was just not coughing and how this hole laid out i don't know why he ate that time though he's so glad he did let's go [Music] [Music] [Applause] this trip has been awesome so much work has been put into it just from the logistics to packing up every morning and finding a new spot to fish somewhere else to flow dragging the raft this morning and it's been kind of a frustrating trip this morning was just such a letdown and it's just so nice to capitalize on this this spot where we saw them yesterday it really has made all the work worth it the trip was a success we came for bull trout and we found bull trout but beyond that getting to experience this pristine area of the country firsthand has given me a deeper appreciation for bull trout as a whole this furthered my understanding of why these areas are so important to preserve and inspired me to share this story if you are planning to fish for bull trout please make sure you look into your state and local regulations they are a fragile species but i believe that it's fishermen like you and i who can educate each other and truly make a difference what a way to wrap up the last day in idaho brian did catch the fish but it really did feel like a team effort this whole week we've been grinding from pulling the boat to checking out different spots to just grinding out the camping life we're heading out of town these boys came back and picked me up after i got the closing shot get in loser we're going home we're going home i want to go home we're going home thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time we just got back from our trip and thank you all so much for following along and watching the video we actually just hit 60 000 subscribers and we were trying to get to a hundred by the end of the year smash that like button i don't know i don't know whatever i've heard and say that if you're not subscribed already like what are you what are you doing why are you what are you doing why are you watching this you made it this far you might as well subscribe but we also have our short bus diaries trip in colorado coming up at the start of october we have a really fun brewery night planned we're gonna have a meet-up where the bus is gonna be open to tour you can stick your head in the bus see what it's like see the build take a whiff check it check it take a whiff of it see see the new upgrades that we've done uh for this season we're extremely excited about it and all four of the guys are going to be there just as they say bowling so come bull with the boys in uh in colorado uh you can meet all of us we're gonna have free beers we're gonna have a bunch of giveaways we're gonna be giving i'm giving away some blue line flies we'll give away some merch we're gonna have some wildfly stuff we're gonna have some stuff from our sponsors to give away all sorts of cool stuff that we're going to have to give away this is our first meet-up we've ever done so really excited i am behind the computer and post these videos and we don't ever get to interact with any of you guys unless we bump into you on the river or something so we're really excited to meet some of y'all in colorado come get a beer meet us see the bus in person see what you're not missing out on and uh boom i don't know that's gonna do it you guys have watched long enough and uh we'll see y'all in colorado

Channel: WildFlyProductions

Views: 51,534

Rating: 4.9695611 out of 5

Keywords: fly fishing trout, north carolina, fishing, mountains, on the fly, brown trout, rainbow trout, brook trout, outdoors, outside, appalachia, blue ridge, boone, nc, trout fishing, wild fly, wild fly productions, huge fly fisherman, camping, backcountry fishing, spin fishing, jon b, googan squad, dry fly fishing, wildfly, fly fishing photography, fly fishing, salmona truta, jensen fly fishing, bass fishing, smallmouth bass

Id: Ppl2U6lHYno

Length: 35min 44sec (2144 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021