Bull Trout and Broken Rod

I’ve been known to say if you break a rod, you’ll have a hell of a story. Here is my story of a Bull Trout and broken rod that happened recently.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

The dog days of summer are definitely here as the heat wave continues in Central Oregon and many other western states. I haven’t fished my home water, the Metolius, in over three weeks. Why? We snuck off to the Madison River in early July. But really, the heat. It’s been hot in Central Oregon and my experience is fishing is tough on the river in last July and August.

But we had to try.

We decided to camp on the Metolius River, hoping to find a few rising fish in the last hour of light and perhaps in the morning. 

If you are a regular here on RiverKeeper Flies, you know how much I enjoy dry fly fishing. Past experience has shown we’ve had spotty fishing in July and August. We hoped to find caddis or PMDs hatching late in the day and maybe Rusty Spinners in the morning or evening.

But it wasn’t to be.

I did take my Sage RPLxI 9′ 8-weight with a Lamson LP 3 reel and a few Bull Trout flies to swing with hopes of hooking a big fish or two.

My fishing partner did hook and loose a fish with a Rusty Spinner.

Shortly after that, I hooked a Bull Trout. After a good fight I was able to get the fish almost to hand and…….SNAP!

Yep, that sound is a broken rod.

And here is the fish that did it.

My wife took this video of the remnants. 

The video shows the last section of a 3-piece rod that is now a 5-piece rod. The last section broke at the ferrule.

Not much else to say about the fishing. It was hot. We only saw a couple of fish.

Now for a rod repair…

Enjoy…go fish!