After seeing a recent report on some bull trout coming out of the Sultan, I decided to head back out to a stretch of river I had fished a few weeks before and done fairly well on for smaller trout. Starting at Sportman's Park in Sultan with a size 0 Vibrax, I began moving upstream while casting to likely looking pools and other pieces of holding water. I started getting some interest from the small trout crowd, bringing in one at about 6" within a few minutes. When I reached the first deep pool of the stretch I was fishing I figured that there were probably some bulls holding right in the center of the pool in the deepest portions, and I was correct in that assumption. Casting my spinner well upstream and letting it sink into the depths of the pool I was able to bring in four bulls in about 20 minutes or so, ranging from about 8" to about 12". When I was bringing in the 8" fish I saw another much bigger bull chase it right to my feet. The big one was probably at least 16" (as a conservative estimate...it very well could have been 20" or more, hard to tell underwater though), and immediately got me excited knowing that bigger fish were around too. I switched over to a small gold Krocodile to try to entice a bite from a bigger fish, but unfortunately didn't have any luck..

Moving on to the next deep hole, I again tried the usual hardware, figuring that this hole was bound to have some nice bulls because everything that made the previous hole good (depth, flow, water color, size) was even better at this hole. For whatever reason though. I wasn't able to get any hookups out of this particular spot. Knowing that there was more good water to fish ahead of me, I continued on my upstream course, eventually arriving at Osprey Park. By this point the light had dropped enough that I switched to a predominantly silver and blue Roostertail and bean working a likely looking pool with deep and slow downstream retrieves. It was within about my first three casts into the pool that I hooked into a solid bull, probably a good 15" or more. I got it right up to me, saw it flashing underwater and then unfortunately it threw the hook right in front of me. I now knew that there were good sized fish in this hole though, so I kept on casting and eventually brought in another bull at about 11".

After the action in that hole stared to slow I tied on a size 2 silver Vibrax hoping that something big would show interest in the waning light. Well, I got nothing more out of that hole, but I was planning on hitting the two deep holes I had fished earlier so I began heading back downstream. Arriving back at the hole which had looked so good earlier but produced no fish, I began working the Vibrax through the bottom of the pool and the difference was like night and day as compared to my experience fishing the pool only an hour or so before. I caught four bulls in about twelve casts, with two of them being a solid 15" on back to back casts. Continuing to my last hole for the evening I got two more bulls in about the 10" range and called it a night.

It was a great night. I caught 13 fish with 11 of them being bulls and two of them being beautiful 15" specimens. One observation I will note is that the water in the Sultan was quite cold as compared to what I would expect it to be. I see that they have been letting a bit more water down the river recently and I think that has helped to drop the temps, creating a draw for fish trying to find cooler water. I didn't measure it, but simply based upon my gut feeling while sticking my arm into the water trying to get a lure back, I bet the river was somewhere in the 50s. Keep in mind that if you are going after bulls you can only keep those over 20", and you can't even remove any that are less than that size from the water. These are some special fish, treat them with respect and we can preserve this cool fishery for all to enjoy.

Tight lines!

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