On a recent trip down Oregon's McKenzie River, we made a very unexpected catch when a predator Bull Trout slammed a Kwikfish while we were fishing for Chinook Salmon. From a distance we first thought it was a steehead when it rolled and splashed on the surface. As it neared the boat I was shocked to see it was in fact a protected wild Bull Trout. We haven't landed a Bull Trout in perhaps 10 years now on the Lower McKenzie. They do occur in the icy, cold, clean waters of the upper river, but are still not extremely common. Even though the hungry fish grabbed a large plug, it was fortunately hooked in the boney part of the mouth, so it was easilly released and swam off vigorously in search of new prey. We speculated that the fish had washed down from the upper river over Leaburg Dam during the high water episode which occured last month. Once while fly fishing for rainbows in the upper McKenzie, we had a about a nine pound Bull Trout grab the 12 inch rainbow my guest was reeling in!