Lake Billy Chinook Winter Fishing

Since the mishap last year when BWild and I couldn't get that big bull of 10-1/2 pounds to purge his air sac and ended up keeping him for the smoker, I was primed to keep a couple fish this trip if we were fortunate enough to catch a few. That fish was so delicious off the smoker and we don't make it over the mountain very often to fish for these Bulls, so into the fish box it went. We high-fived and quickly got our offerings back down to the 87' and 100' depth marks using Josh's Cannon downriggers. Every hour we seemed to average about two fish. Just great consistent fishing. We concentrated on the Confluence of the Crooked and Deschutes and all that area down to the Boundary Line.

Around 9:15, I suggested to Josh that we throw out my flatline rod for covering some upper water column fish. Josh quickly agreed, so I tossed on a kokanee pattern Lyman lure and dropped her back behind the boat well beyond the downrigger lines. Not 15 minutes passed when the rod suddenly went straight in the air in the holder followed immediately by the SLAM of a big bull that quickly swung the plug forward and then swam off with the prize! Josh and I saw it all happen at the same time. I instantly got up out of my seat to sink the Owner trebles a little deeper into the big bull's jaw. Sure enough, the fight was on with a very heavy feeling bull trout! It had been 7 years since I last caught a bull over the double digit mark in weight, and I was hoping this guy would end that streak. After a good 10 minute battle, Dustin netted the big bull for me! What an awesome fish he was too. After some quick pictures, a weight and measurement of the bull reaffirmed our beliefs that this guy was over the double digit mark. At just 26-1/2" long, he weighed in at a whopping 16 pounds in my rubber net, which comes out to a 10-1/2 pound bull trout after subracting the 5.5lb net weight!

I prefer to weigh a trophy fish in the net so that the metal jaws on my boga-grip scale don't tear up the fishes mouth and also to avoid holding a big fish vertically, as it is said to not do the fish any favors internally to their organs. After a few repeat soaks in the net to keep the fish well oxygenated in between photos and weights, I was ready to release this big boy back to his domain. With just one kick, the big bull was swimming back to the depths of LBC. All of us celebrated and I was stoked full of adrenaline for the rest of the day. Amazing how a big fish will do that!

With that big bull under our belts, I told Dustin that everything else would just be icing on the cake. That one fish made this whole trip over the mountain worth the gas money, hotel room for the night, and food expense for the weekend. But the good Lord wasn't done shining down on us yet. I reeled in another dandy bull of 25-1/2" that weighed in at 8 pounds.

Before that fish though, Dustin pulled in a great bull around 25" that we once again released. It was mid-day by this point, so we made the decision to keep the 8 pounder. So with only one more bull to go before being limited out for the day, we fished on. Around 2 o'clock, we landed another bull going 24-1/2 inches. We decided to release him to get bigger for someone else to catch. The bite really slowed after that and at around 4:30 we decided to call it a day. We ended up catching about 12 bulls on Saturday, with one being over the 10lb. mark, 4 others being legal keeper size or bigger, and the rest 22" and smaller. Just an awesome day of bull trout fishing.

Sunday was much slower. Maybe it was just because we didn't have the master fishing with us! Josh could only commit to Saturday, so Dustin and I were fishing out of my boat on Sunday. Either way, the barometer was definitely not on our side as it was plummeting due to the incoming cold front moving in out of the west. I did manage to boat one fish though, and it was a good one. At 25-1/2" and weighing 7 pounds, we had our one and only keeper for the day.

This fish came around 10 a.m. and was also caught off the top lining rod with a kokanee pattern stickbait. Knowing we had fished almost 4 hours with only one other previous bite, Dustin and I made the call to take this bull home for the smoker as well. We headed back to Cove Palisades by Noon, loaded up the boat and headed for home. I was happy to have three keepers in the cooler to show the kids back home and to be able to fillet out and put on the Traeger. I have a killer dry brine that I came up with last year that is simply delicious. I also make sure I fillet the meat off the skin and then do my due diligence to trim off the lateral line fatty tissue to ensure the best taste. Smoked bull trout is every bit as good as steelhead in my opinion!

Once I got home and got everything unpacked, I started tending to the fish. The first bull I filleted was the 25-1/2", 8 pounder I caught on Saturday. As I was just finishing up trimming the meat off the skin and putting the meat in a pan, I noticed a glass like device just sitting there on my cutting board! I was like "where did that come from!?!?" Then it dawned on me that it must have come out of the fillet from the bull trout. It was a tag from the ODFW! I took a photo of it with my phone and text Josh who is friends with some of the local biologists in Central Oregon. He called back to say it was indeed a tag and he couldn't believe it after all the years of fishing LBC and catching bull trout he has never came across one! I will be mailing it in to the Prineville office for analysis. Can't wait to hear about the history of this fish from the tag. Pretty cool.

Finally, I would like to thank our good friend Josh Wedding for an incredible day on the water! He put us on the fish and is a really fun guy to be around. Hopefully I can return the favor with a brown trout trip in the future. Thanks again buddy!

Dustin and I had a great trip, and I can't wait to go again!

Until next time,

R.D.

"Browns - Coyotes of the Fishing World!"