My son Tyler is scheduled to be gone for a couple weeks for some sporting events so we thought this would be a good time
to hit East Lake in search of a big Brown Trout. We arrived Friday evening about 6 pm, quickly launched the boat and got down
to business. It was very windy and cool which made handling the boat a bit challenging at times. Tyler was the first on the
board with a smaller one off the downrigger. As it turns out, that was our only fish for the evening. Not exactly how I was
hoping to start the weekend off. We beached the boat and got some dinner while he schooled me in Yahtzee.
The wind was relentless all night long and it was still blowing hard when it was time for us to launch the next morning.
It made for another cold and challenging day on the water. Apparently the cold front had killed the bite but we still managed
to land 10 throughout the day. Most of the fish were 12 - 16 inches but Tyler got a couple in the 3-4 lb range. After I made
a feeble comeback with the dice we hit the sack in hopes of Sunday being a more promising day than the previous.
I was surprised to wake up and see the lake was pure glass and still fairly moderate temperature-wise. We were into fish
as soon as our lures were set out. Nearly all of the fish were similar in size to the previous day but again, we managed a
couple more in the 3-4 lb range. Tyler has yet to exceed the 5 lb mark for Brown Trout and that was our goal for this trip.
Sunday turned out to be the single best day Brown trout fishing we have ever had. We landed several doubles and even
managed a triple!! The triple was cool to talk about after the fact, but it was really more trouble than it's worth, especially
if one of them is a bigger fish. We each lost a pretty good fish that we were sure would have pushed the mark, but never having
seen it will keep just as a memory. Tyler and I each landed our biggest fish of the trip at 4 lbs even on a stellar 40 fish
day. The weather was picture-perfect and the lake was glass all day long. I don't wanna talk about Yahtzee any more,
the kid has a horseshoe hidden somewhere. Nobody's that lucky!
We hit it again at first light Monday morning. Tyler
immediately hooked up with a smaller fish. Just after he released it and was clipping his line back in the downrigger, mine
went off. I set the hook, looked over and Tyler's 2nd rod was slamming down in the holder. He dropped his 1st rod and pulled
back on the 2nd and it immediately started taking line and fighting much harder than the rest. I finished unhooking my fish
and cleared the remaining two rods so we could concentrate on the one fish. It was still a ways out there but as it neared
something didn't look right. Usually bigger Browns will stay down and headshake a lot but this one came up to the surface.
As it neared I could see tail/head/tail/head. It seemed to be fouled which is fairly common. It was still a nice fish about
2 1/2 lbs but it was hooked right in the exit hole . It sure seemed like a bigger fish since it had all it's power going
one way and the boat going 3 mph the other direction. We both thought surely this would be the one. It was still a good fish,
just not "the one" All said and done we landed 55 Browns which is a great weekend as far as I'm concerned. We didn't get any
truly big ones but we had plenty of action to make up for it.
