This last weekend I had the privilege of sharing the boat with a great old friend of mine from high school. We’ve exchanged hellos a time or two via Facebook over the last couple years, but we ran into each other back in December and after nearly an hour of nonstop fish talk and hearing his enthusiasm to learn more about the TTH sport, we decided that we absolutely had to plan a trip. Kevin had tuned in to this website a while back and being an avid spey fisherman for steelhead, he decided to modify his drift boat with the tools required for chasing our beloved trophy trout in the lakes of central Oregon. He carefully and wisely gleaned information from the “Trophy Trout Techniques” page on this site and set off to Crescent Lake last summer to see if he could successfully apply his new found gear and knowledge. Sure enough, with relatively little time on the water, he started tapping into some quality lakers and browns with his best fish being a nice 7 ½ lb hookjaw brown. Not a bad start at all! He was still rolling with a head full of questions about the game and I’m sure that he was expecting to get a bunch of definitive answers from a seasoned veteran like myself… Hahaha!

We hit the snow covered shore of Crescent Lake at 7:00 Friday morning with a gorgeous sunrise under way. It didn’t take us long to have the boat prepped and in the water. I suggested that we make the first run in shallow water (10-20 ft) along the shoreline and past my beloved Simax Beach.  As right as everything felt, we trolled along for over an hour without a bump. As we approached the scout camp I suggested that we run the camp in shallow but then turn around and head back towards the resort, but this time targeting water in the 30 ft depth range – still running the same Bomber Long A’s on top. Within 5 minutes of the about face, my rod went off and I had a quality fish on the line. The battle yielded a long skinny female brown of around 25 inches and 4 ½ lbs. She was still recovering from the late fall spawn and was looking pretty sad. We trolled on at the same depth and picked up a smaller brown closer to Simax. Nothing was showing up on the graph, but we had plucked a couple of fish so we pulled another 180 and hit Simax again. As my lure descended the back side of Simax Point my aggressive ripping was met by a hard take of a big fish. Two seconds later it was gone and my heart sank… luckily my head stayed in the game and I gave the lure a couple more enticing rips and BAM!... the beast came back for another taste. The hooks stuck this time and line began to peel from my reel as the fish took off like a freight train. Ten minutes later Kevin carefully slipped the net under the biggest trout of my life, a 34 inch, 21 lb lake trout. Big, fat, and beautiful! The look on my face in the photo says it all…

We continued to fish the same run through the afternoon and picked up a few more browns to 3 lbs. The weather was shifting and we watched a dark system slowly pushing towards us. The bite held up and at around 4:00 my rod folded over hard once again and line immediately started flying off my reel. This thing felt big and powerful. In a minute my 300 ft long line had been drug out to well over 400 ft of line and I was not gaining any back to speak of. It was just holding ground and as I’d pump in a few feet of line it would just take it back from me. It’s a creepy feeling to know you’re connected with a big fish and there is so much line and water between closing the gap and landing the quarry. I asked Kevin to gently run the boat in reverse to help me win back some line. Soon enough I had the fish tired out and we were close enough to see it wallowing on the surface. It was still a struggle to pull him towards the boat and soon enough I could clearly see why… He had body slammed my lure on the attack and wound up hooked in the adipose fin. Finally he was in the net and although it was not the monster I had hoped, it was still a respectable hookjaw indeed, weighing in at a bit over 6 lbs. That was the last bite of the day.

The yurt we had rented kept us warm and dry through the night and we were raring to go at 6:00 am. It was a chilly 14 degrees and a light snow was falling. This day would turn out to be much slower than the previous. We stayed on the same program for the most part, flatlining over 30 ft of water. I stuck a nice 12 lb laker mid morning and we pulled a small brown here and there. I did connect with two big boys but lost them both… one bit me off… sad to see that special lure go, and I really hope that the trophy that took it managed to shake those hooks free. 

Sunday presented even slower fishing. We quit at 4:00 with 4 or 5 browns under our belt. I think the total count for the weekend was 22 fish between us. Kevin and I ran the same or similar lures the whole time, same line/leader set ups, same setbacks, obviously fishing the exact same water, and both of us were ripping our rods aggressively most of the time. In the end, not one substantial sized fish even bit Kevin’s lure. I landed 4 fish over 24 inches and lost another 4 that were pretty clearly big fish for a total of 8 that hit my lure… Sure it's always nice to catch big fish, but I always enjoy more balanced success between the guys I share the boat with. I consider this game to be a team sport. Not just between the guys in one boat, but often between other trophy anglers sharing the same lake. There's usually a lure, color, depth, area, ect that is most productive on a given day and sharing info can make the difference between success and a long, eventless boat ride. Kevin is a smart guy with a great attitude, but I'm sure that at his personal experience level his head was spending a lot more time wondering "I'm I doing this right?...". With each big fish I would hook into, there was likely some degree of "Why does Dan keep hooking fatties, and none are hitting my lure?". Perhaps that hocus-pocus confidence thing was at play in a big way...

It looks like Mothers Day weekend will be the next big trip... I'm pretty stoked to have started this year off right and looking forward to hooking into some more of my favorite fishes!