So that just happenend...

Two fish, at the same time.

We began the drift under sun drenched skies and a river void of other boat traffic.  4 weights with dries, 5 weights were saddled with nymphs and small streamers to attract Westslope Cutthroat

Into the first run of the day, OMR was on the sticks and I won the right to chuck line first.  About 3 minutes in, a nice 15 inch cutty slammed my Chubby Chernobyl.   A really nice fish on this particular river, not a dink at all

While in the process of wrangling the fish in, a monster came calling.

The first slashing attack, the monster Bull Trout missed the Cutthroat.  Undeterred, it came back and this time, clamped down for good on my fish

Did I mention I was fishing a 4 weight rod with 5x tippet?

Bull Trout are a protected fish, un-targetable.  I do not condone fishing for them in the system I was fishing, but in this instance, I had to land this fish in the quickest manner possible, and in turn, release it as fast as possible.  I dont think a size 8 Chubby Chernobyl would work well inside of the Bull Trout.

Now I have fished these mountain rivers enough to see this happen before.  The small trout smashes around on the surface, and the big boys come to investigate.  I've even had one clamp on before, but NEVER have I heard of them holding on...and continuing to hold on

OMR quickly beached the boat, and I dropped out to try and get the upper hand.

Thankfully, amazingly....I won the battle.  I had to gingerly remove the Cutthroat  from the Bull, took the fly out of the cutty's mouth, and then release the Bull.  Also, the Cutthroat lived and swam away

My guestimation gage put this monster at over 8 lbs and pushing 28-30 nches. 

After the dust settled on that exchange, OMR turned to me and said....and I quote


"So that just happened"

Yes Dad, yes it did...

More photo's from this day coming tomorrow.