By Eddie Hudon
This story is about my trip to Montana, in July 2018 with my friend James Serra. The plan was to float the Missouri River and throw dry flies all day. The water level a month before we got there was 20,000 cfm’s. Didn’t look good. Although it dropped to 10,000 cfm’s, we had to change our plans. One of the options we had was to fish the Blackfoot River. The river is famous for it’s cutthroat trout and Bull trout. Cutthroat trout are identified by the Orange markings on their gill plates. Bull trout are identified by the pale spots on their body with no black spots on the dorsal fin.
While floating the Blackfoot, we were throwing dry flies (chubbs-looks like a beedle) with red San Juan worm as our dropper. The river was loaded with fish! We were catching cutthroat’s left and right. During one of those hook ups, James caught a 15” cutthroat. As he was bringing it in, it started to go wild. Why? A 32” Bull Trout was chasing it. We witnessed the whole thing. The Bull trout devoured the cutthroat. Now the real fight was on. After a twenty-minute battle, James landed that Monster. We estimated the fish to weigh 13.5 lbs, plus 1.5 lbs for the cutthroat (15 lbs. LOL); we released it unharmed. It’s in the Blackfoot till the next time. That’s NO Bull!
Eddie Hudon is the Owner of Blue Chip Fly Fishing headquartered in Whittier, NC