With my little girl 1200 miles away with her grandparents for this year’s father’s day, I managed to justify taking the time out of my crazy schedule to go fishing at Crane Prairie for the first time in three years. I have been hearing good reports over the last few weeks and it would seem that Crane is fighting its way back to epic trout fishing potential. It’s been a while since I have tapped into really solid fishing at Crane, but backing up a few years, I was having great success with a fun drill of casting and jigging back Kastmasters and catching a high ratio of big brook trout along with a really nice rainbow here and there. I landed several brookies over 5 lbs with the biggest going a bit over 6 1/2… Huge when talking brook trout! The state record of 9 ½ lbs came from the Deschutes above Crane and I guarantee that fish grew big and fat in the rich waters of the lake before eventually being caught a ways upstream. I have a lifetime goal of catching an 8 lb brookie and I know Crane is the only place that might make that dream come true.  

My lovely girlfriend, Lynn and I got on the water at around 3:00 Sunday afternoon. The weather was intermittent, with a steady wind creating a healthy chop on the water. We found our way through the snags to a favorite area and started in with a wind drift/casting drill. We made hundreds of casts through the evening, but were only rewarded with 2 small rainbows and Lynn got her first brook trout which was a colorful little 14 incher. The fish were just not active and we never saw a single boil, nor felt the tug of a respectable sized fish. I knew the unstable weather was playing a roll and we called it a night knowing that tomorrow would be a new day.

Monday morning came and Lynn got to experience her first Crane Prairie sunrise. It was a calm, slightly foggy, and beautiful morning, and best of all, as the sun came over the hills, big trout were jumping and boiling in every direction. The bite was still slow to start, but the calm was finally disrupted when a fat brookie smacked my Kastmaster. It was a super fun battle on my light weight gear and soon enough we were taking photos of the multi-colored char. He was short and stocky, pushing a respectable 3 pounds. It wasn’t long after that when Lynn found herself in a tug of war with a bigger fish… She was on the ultra light rod and did a great job gently working her first Cranebow into the net. It was a gorgeous male that had just finished the spring spawn, and he was right around 4 ½ lbs. We went on fishing until our clock ran out at 5:30. We caught 7 more fish, mostly brookies, and they were all smaller with the exception of one gorgeous brook that was a half pound bigger than the first of the day. No monsters hit our lures but it was so much fun to share this special place with my sweet Lynn and we enjoyed plenty of jaw dropping moments of giant trout swirling around us throughout the day. She definitely got the Crane Prairie experienced and loved it. I can’t believe that I have become one of the lucky few men who have a wonderful lady who actually loves to fish!!