Paul Genho from Salt Lake City joined up with his Son-in-law Vince Stanton to fish with me on Wed. and Thurs. We were just coming off a small cold front and the weather got really nice. Boy does the sun feel nice after a long winter in CO.

It has been a totally different drill this year and is taking a little time to find the fish some days. Last year we had tons of bulls balled up at 40-70 feet from Box Canyon to Perry South. They seemed to be feasting on balls of kokanee that were easy to find. I am not seeing anything in those same waters this year. We are getting most of our fish, and all of the better bulls, working the shoreline in various parts of the Metolius Arm.

Paul got the best fish of the day on Wed. when he stuck a 8.5 Lb. bull in the island vicinity. Vince stuck a nice 5 LB. bull and the two of them combined on (4) bulls for the day. On Thurs. we put up another (4) bulls with Paul getting a nice 11.5 LB. buck and a 6 LB. fish and Vince getting 2 and 4.5 LB. bulls. The weather was as good as it gets.

Besides Paul's nice buck (we are mounting it for him), the highlight of the trip was something I have never seen and perhaps will never see again. This was a "National Geographic moment" if there ever was one.

We had been running herring and were just getting ready to switch back to plugs and pound the shoreline in an area I really like. We all noticed the bald eagle swooping down from the cliff about the same time. With our eyes fixed on the diving raptor, we couldn't believe what happened next. The eagle grabbed a fairly large bull trout right out of the grasp of a large adult otter that was swimming along the shoreline. The bull trout was big enough that the eagle opted to jump up on the rocky shoreline about 3 feet from the water line. Immediately the otter was right up there trying to get his meal back from the thief.

We couldn't believe what we were seeing. I pulled in the rods to head over there (about 200 feet away) to watch this spectacle. The otter kept running at the eagle and trying to get behind it. The eagle stood his ground and with one talon holding the fish, it was thrusting the other at the angry otter. Finally the otter gave in and got back in the lake and started swimming down the lake. By this time we were moving in on the eagle and he got nervous. As we approached the last 50 feet, the eagle took off and settled in a juniper tree about 40 yards away. All of a sudden, the otter surfaces in front of the torn bull trout and scampers up and drags it back into the lake to claim what was rightfully his. Scenes like this may go on more than we think. It was something I will never forget.

Tight Lines, Rick