Bull trout locations

[Devan S.]

I am hoping someone can provide some less known locations for Bull trout specifically ID or OR. I know the normal "broad" locations/drainages. I am hoping someone can narrow it down a bit more for me. Planning on going west again in 2023/24 and Bull trout in ID or OR is needed for my Western native challenge. 

There isn't a lot of information out there. While I may ultimately go for a full week for only Bulls in 2024, 2023 will be just a 1-3 day adventure along with other plans. Hoping to just tip the odds a few % in my favor. PM preferred. 

[Quillback]

I have caught them in Washington, but it was incidental to steelhead and salmon fishing.  Some of the lakes out there have them and when they spawn, which I believe is in the fall, they'll run up the tribs in decent numbers.  

I don't know if you'll get any replies with an X marks the spot in Idaho or Oregon.  I believe that if you do the research, find the streams that hold them, maybe look for ones that are out of the way and hard to get to, you'll find some fish.  

[tjm]

I'd contact the fisheries state departments and ask for their assistance, they are watching those fish pretty close and will know exactly where they are. And where they are legal to target.  I think Id. is C&R everywhere, Mt. had an "experimental" season on selected waters a couple years ago. The only place that I heard them talked about when I lived out there was in Malheur lake drainage, but that was ~65 years ago, and lots of dry years since then. 

[Devan S.]

I'm thinking in Oregon the Metoluis but I may not make it there in 2023....it maybe my 2024 trip, time will tell. Even then at 29 miles long and reasonable access its easy to break it down fairly fast once I get boots on the ground. 

The problem with Idaho is that it looks like almost every major system has them according to Idaho fish and game and everything out there seems to be a half day+ travel to get too. Again not completely conducive to 1-3 days. The Saint Joe River shows to have year round resident fish as well as migratory fish but its got 140 miles of river to explore not including every tributary that likely has some fish. The Clearwater and its forks offer hundreds more miles. I'm just trying to narrow it down a bit.

[BilletHead]

       I have caught in two places. I will look back in my notes. Like @Quillback said timing is the key. Big deep rivers and lakes until the spawning run. We have caught a couple each. There is only one lake in Montana you can legally fish and take one.  Anywhere else you are caught trying to catch one you are in trouble. Incidental catch and release it happens but you had better get a quick picture and get it back in the water and not really share or brag in public. Years ago there was guys trying to and catching them in a river in Montana and posting on you tube. They got caught. WE incidentally caught some in Grave Creek. In the summer juveniles born in the creeks spend a couple years in the spawning grounds before dropping back to lakes or big rivers. We even caught those on drys and hoppers.  Grave creek is close to the Canadian border. Camping along it.   The other two we caught were in Idaho I think. Will look back but again in thin, skinny water we like to fish. Juveniles again but legal to target no keep deal. Into our Western native challenge.

[Quillback]

Yeah they were pretty much catch and release in WA too, back in the 90's you could keep them.  Never were a bunch of them around even then.  The ones I caught migrated from salt water into the local rivers, they were actually Dolly Vardens which I believe are considered a different species than Bull trout.  I always thought they were the same.

 

[Devan S.]

Someday...as a bucket list deal I'd really like to go to Fernie, BC and fish the Elk for giants but alas on this trip I will just be looking for a fish. Although if I stumbled into a big one....I'd be okay with that. 

[tjm]

23 hours ago, Quillback said:

Yeah they were pretty much catch and release in WA too, back in the 90's you could keep them.  Never were a bunch of them around even then.  The ones I caught migrated from salt water into the local rivers, they were actually Dolly Vardens which I believe are considered a different species than Bull trout.  I always thought they were the same.

 

They were the same until the 70s  when they were divided the same way that rainbow trout are now divided from steelhead when they used to be the same species. It seems rather silly to me, but I don't get to name the fish. Dolly Varden go to sea, are anadromous, the  resident version of Dolly Varden  are Bull Trout. Generally coastal char would be Doly Varden and the inland char would be Bull Trout. I found this - Dolly Varden vs Bull Trout

In Id. there once was some in a creek east of Galena summit that tasted like fish, I think they were hatchery fish.   My Uncle didn't like them or cutthroat, only wanting to catch the stocked rainbows. I think all the trout that I ever saw in Idaho in the '60s were stocked. They dropped them babies out of aircraft in remote locations. I recall a chain of glacier fed lakes that we packed into 6 hours on horses and me asking the scoutmaster how the trout climbed up the near vertical out flow, his reply was they didn't, that there had been no trout in that drainage until they were stocked. I'd look at cold <58F high altitude remote streams in the Salmon drainage if I was looking for bull trout in Id.

[Quillback]

I used to hike into the lakes in the mountains of Washington.  Same deal there, those lakes did not have trout until they were stocked.  They may have stocked some by plane at one time, but how they were stocking them by having people hike in with a pack with a stout plastic bag inside with fingerlings in it.  I believe they also took some in on pack mules or horses.  In some of the lakes the trout could reproduce if there were streams coming in.  Usually it was bows or cutts, but there were a few that were infested with brookies, you could catch 10-12 inch brookies until you got tired of it.

They have pretty much stopped stocking the alpine lakes in Washington to protect the native frogs and salamanders.  

[tjm]

I have seen photos of mule pack trains carrying cream cans full of fingerlings into Idaho and I think Wyoming mountains back around 1900 when the Feds were still the fish stockers.

The alpine lake stocking that I think I witnessed about '64-'65 was with one of those small airplanes that dump water? on forest fires; it  swooped in, dumped and left. It could have been done that way in any beaver pond as big as a foot ball field, maybe even smaller, I don't know how accurate the dumps are. 

Here is a picture from the web (not the one I was thinking of) captioned "Mule train carrying trout fingerlings for stocking in Idaho circa 1944 (cardcow.com)"

If memory serves me, only one drainage in Idaho could have had rainbows prior to stocking. And of course the brookies were only near the east coast. And what we called "German Trout"  back in the 20th century had to come from Europe with the Carp.  But the Feds were stocking every stream in the world back in the 1880-1920 time period, whether it was a good idea or not, with trout and carp.