Location: Squamish River
Target species: Bull Trout
Method used: swung spoons, swung streamers and twitching jig

Another local angler and I arrived at the river around 8am, first stretch we hit was a new stretch. Upon arrival we noticed a mountain goat perched precariously on a cliff across river from us, then an otter slid into the river just 50ft upriver. There seemed to be quite a healthy ecosystem going on here. The run was slow and green and magical looking. We pounded hard with no luck at all, so we drove down a few kms and hit his favorite beat on the river. It takes quite a while before either of us catch anything. It was him who caught the first bully, i was fishing a different run when he caught it. Next run produced a hit for me, but no hook up due to either knot failure or frayed mainline.
Our action started to pick up at the next run we fished. I knew this run had fish in it and even saw a fish rise across river from us. Being overly confident i tied on a twitching jig and decided i just had to get a bull like this, so i proceeded to fish the run, about halfway down, i hooked up, 2 headshakes and the fish popped off the hook :/ my friend fished behind me and proceeded to land a fat 16" rainbow and a smaller 14" bully swinging a chartreuse/gold r&b spoon 2/3oz. On the next run , i didnt learn my lesson, so i hit the run twitching jigs, then swinging streamers. Nada. Finally some common sense crosses my mind and i put on a 2/5oz matte white bc steel spoon, start swinging it through the tail out and wham.... A big boulder has my spoon :/ so im popping the rod lightly, trying to jiggle it free, not hoarsing it all and snap goes my rod, and because im on a snag the top half of my line goes sliding down into the river, i was never able to free my spoon. The line snapped and there went my rod tip down stream, and to add insult to injury i lost my favorite spoon. I couldnt help but to just start laughing..
At this point, most people would want to leave the river and go home. Good thing is that im not like most people, this just made me buckle down and put my game face on. As im getting the fly rod set up, my friend proceeds to make 5 casts, get 4 takes, and land 3 bulls in a row in the water i JUST about to fish before my rod broke lol. This was the last run of this beat thankfully. Those bulls were 16"-20".
At our next beat he headed up to a wide tailout, and i headed for a slower narrower side channel, hoping to rope one up on the fly. No love in the side channel, and of coarse my friend got another bull in his tailout. We both headed quickly to the final run of beat #3 for the day. At this point im fishing my fly rod with an intermediate tip and a white bugger type streamer, my 2nd swing through the top of this rum and i hook up, a really big bull is thrashing about, had it on for half a minute or so and it popped the hook :/ the fishing gods are having a great time at my expense. My friend still swinging spoons hooks and lands another one... Thats it! I couldnt take it it anymore! Armed with half a spinning rod i put on my most favorite bc steel spoon i had left and proceeded to make some of the funniest looking casts youll ever see. My friend is clearly finding this to be quite humorous, both of use joking what if i actually hook up like this.... Then it happened.... I feel the bite, set the hook with all 20" of rod i had left (from reel to my 1 eyelet) lol im fighting it, its thrashing, pulling line off my reel, and over all really making it a hard endevor to bring it in. I get it close and can see its barely hooked, so i grab my net with my right hand while still playing the fish with my half a rod and land it. As soon as thr fish hit the net, the spoon came right out of its mouth and its thrashing and still quite green yet.. All the while my friend managed to get some pretty great pics. After this he landed 1 mote bull and that was all for the day. Im certain i will never forget this day.

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