Blackfoot- Afternoon

Fished the access road again this afternoon. I found a closed road that went up the river where the main road cuts away from the river.Spotted a nice pool to start on and began fishing at the head of the pool. On the third cast I watched a fish streak through the water, missing my fly. A split second later my fly was smacked and the fish was on. I could tell by the way the fish hit that it was a bull trout. It was a decent sized bully and had some nice colorful spots. The fish also seemed to have a kype forming.

I released the fish quickly and fished down the rest of the run. After, I continued upstream and found another big deep run. The run was hard to fish from the side I was on, so I continued on. For the next half hour I got poured on and basically stood in one spot casting until the shower passed. I spotted a huge pool upstream and walked up to it. There was a huge rock formation with high cliffs that led right down to the deep part of the pool. From where I was, it was pretty much impossible to reach the other side with a fly.

Upstream from the pool was a small section of rapids which led into a deep slot. I made my way to the top and started working behind some boulders. On one of my casts my line got looped up. I messed with it for a few seconds and got the small knot untangled. By the time I did, my fly had swung almost directly downstream of me. I started to strip it back through some slower shallow water on the edge of the deep run and all of the sudden a big bull trout came out of nowhere rocketing towards the fly. The fish turned away at the last moment. I had stopped stripping so I stripped it one more time. The fish turned and took another look and then returned to the slot. I made another cast and gave the fly some sinking time. I saw the fish follow one more time and then disappear. I changed up flies after a few more casts and fished for a long time working the entire run. I switched one more time and after completing the run once again I called it a day. I think that tomorrow I might head right back to the same spot to try and get that fish. Overall the Blackfoot is still producing fish on streamers regularly. However, all that I've caught in my last few outings are bull trout (which is fine with me.) I'll remain on the Blackfoot until I find a reason to fish somewhere else. The stretch of river I fished today was one of the most beautiful stretches I've fished out west and to top it all off, there's no people. That didn't make me feel more comfortable about being in prime grizzly habitat but I kept making noise throughout the afternoon. Hopefully the day never arrives when I come face to face with a griz.