I went on my last fishing trip of 2010 to Crescent Lake after Thanksgiving meal with the family. I arrived at Crescent Lake just in time to get my gear to the yurt before dark. My plan was to fly fish Friday in my float tube, fish Saturday with Joe Moritz for Mackinaw and Sunday with Bret Martin for Brown Trout. After having a great breakfast at the lodge on Friday I went back to my Yurt and got my Float tube. I think I was the last person using the public boat launch this year.

 I am a pure novice fly fisherman. My goal this season was to catch a brown on a fly over 5 pounds. I didn't come close. Casting a sinking fly line while sitting in a float tube was a lot tougher than I expected. It will take a couple of seasons before I expect to reach my goal of a 5 pound hookjaw. I did spend over 4 hours on the water trying to achieve my goal on Friday. I made it to Simax Beach and back in my float tube. If nothing else it was good exercise. After fishing I went back to the lodge for dinner and watched the second half of the Ducks game. A great way to finish a fun day on the water.

When I got up Saturday morning I open the door to the yurt and laughed at the amount of snow we got overnight. We got over a foot of fresh snow to add to the foot and half we already had. I went to go get my tackle box out of my explorer and found it covered with snow.

Joe and I took some time to get the snow out of his boat before we started to fish for Mackinaw around 8am. We covered a lot of water without a strike before we took a short lunch break. After lunch we were back at it fishing several areas that had produced fish in the past for both of us. It was just one of those days that we couldn't get a fish. A big thanks to Joe for taking me out on his boat. Joe posts a lot of his fishing reports on www.ifish.net on the trout board. He goes by Fish-On-Bend. Be sure to check them out. Joe shares a lot of information on his reports. That evening I went back to the lodge to for dinner and to meet up with Bret. We enjoyed watching the Stanford game and then went back to the yurt for the night.

With in just a few minutes of letting our lines out Sunday morning I hooked up big. Crescent has been tough this year for browns for Bret and I. We were in less then 15 feet of water and the fish was giving me some hard head shakes. When the fish got close to the boat I seen just a glimpse and it was big. Then Bret yells out Mack. WTH? A few years ago I would have been unhappy but I was glad to finally get a fish this weekend. It weighed in at 13 pounds. We put the Mack in the live well so we could keep fishing for browns. Bret caught one small brown later in the morning but that was it for our trip. Thanks Bret for getting me into a fish.

This was one of my favorite trips in a long time, not because of the fish caught but of the time on the water with friends who fish hard in tough conditions. We had several problems that Gil, the resort manager, and his staff helped us with. A big thanks to them for all their help this trip. As many of you know that I am now boat less. It will probably be 2012 before I get another boat. If anybody ever has a open seat just shoot me a email at hookjawhunter@gmail.com, I would be happy to split expense and share a tip or two that I have learned from fishing central Oregon lakes the last 25 years.

Jimmy