It’s been 2 months since my last TTH adventure and it was time to get after it again.  I had a family trip planned since last September to meet up with my parents, and my two sisters and their families in Sunriver.  However, my wife and I both wanted to have some alone time with our little family.  I suggested we rent a cabin at East Lake Resort for a couple days, just us.  She immediately agreed. 

First night’s dinner was a masterful display of shish-kabaobs that the family enjoyed.  With a full belly, my 15 month-old son washed up and his bed-time story read, I was out to pursue some trophy browns for the last 2 hours of legal fishing.

The first hour of trolling was pretty slow.  With my two-rod stamp employed, I was trying various depths, lures, speeds, techniques.  Anything to trigger a bite.  Finally, around 8:45, my rod in hand was met with a good-jerk of resistance.  Quickly jerking back, the rod loaded and under my breath with only God listening I said “Finally!  FISH ON!”  After a scrappy 3 minute fight, I landed a gorgeous, golden-brown trout of 4 lbs, and 21 inches long.  After setting up the self-timer on my camera and getting a couple pics, off he swam to gain some length and weight.  Good first fish for the trip.

With only about 40 minutes of legal fishing left, I was hoping that maybe this was the start of a good bite.  I got hit almost instantaneously after I set my first rod up in the downrigger.  I popped it out of the clip, but nobody home.  I caught an 18” dink and had a couple more drive-by’s, but nothing to write home about.  With about 3 minutes left of legal and me heading towards the cabins, I asked myself the toiling question “Which rod should I bring in?”  Well, that question was answered instantaneously with a sound of a “THWOK….thump…thump”.  I quickly glanced at my downrigger rod and it was out of the clip and it was pumping!  I grabbed it and immediately felt a strong fish on the other end.  “SWEET!”  After some give and take I got to my Albright knot knowing I was close.  Piercing the darkness that surrounded me with my headlamp, I caught my first glimpse of the fish!  All I could think was “Whoa, look at the girth on it!”  When I scooped him with my rubber net, I quickly got the hooks out and put him in my livewell to help him recover.  After some quick weight and length measurements, the Hookjaw taped in at 22.5 inches and 5.5 lbs.  Just a chunk!  He was released right after the photo.  Not a bad start to my fishing trip.

The next morning came very early with my alarm going off at 4:30 AM.  I groggily trudged out to my boat, trying not to trip over myself.  I slowly motored out into the darkness and set my rods up, hoping I could match the prior evening’s success.  5 minutes into my first trolling run, the downrigger gets popped out of the release and is bent over hard.  I grabbed the rod and felt a SUBSTANTIAL fish on the end!  I grunted out an “OH YEAH!” as I brought the reel and rod in tight towards my chest with a solid hook-set.  I fought this fish for about 5 minutes.  About half-way in, the worst feeling hit my hands as constant-solid pressure was transitioned to a cork handle resting in my hand.  I yelled “NO”!!!  Sure enough, he came unbuttoned.  I was only able to fish until about 7:30 so I could have breakfast with the family.  I landed 5 fish that morning, but nothing topping 20 inches and lost 6.

During the course of the day was family time.  My wife, Anna, and I tried to get our son, Jackson, out to experience his first boat ride.  A short-lived 2 minutes of being on the water and a very tired child, we turned around and got our son (and ourselves) a very much needed nap.  After nap-time, we enjoyed the day by going out on the boat with “Dad-Da” for about ½ an hour (enough for one trolling run and a take-down) and also some “swimming” in the lake while throwing sticks for our golden retriever, Wrigley, to fetch.  This was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Monday evening came, and with a pre-arranged meeting with TTH-er of the Year for 2010, Eric Cole, we met at the dock at 7:15 pm and began fishing.  This evening was not as productive as the evening before.  I had (5) take-downs but only one dink stuck.  We were near “the cliffs” and I was marking some decent arcs.  I did get one pretty decent hit with about 30 minutes of fishing left.  That’s when Eric decided to pull out all the stops and threw on an 8-inch AC Minnow in a kokanee pattern.  Enough of these 4 and 5 inch lures.  Big fish eat big lures!  He threw it on the downrigger and in a matter of 5 minutes, he went “WHOA!”  I looked over and he was grabbing the rod from the holder as the line had been pulled from the release.  And it was bent over pretty good!  I yelled “Oh YES!!!! Out of the clip!”  But as fast as excitement came, disappointment ensued as the fish got off.  DANGIT!!!  With that, we called it an evening.  We shook hands and he went back to Bend and I went to bed.  Was great getting to finally meet Eric.  Hopefully, the first of many fishing adventures to come with him.

Tuesday morning came quickly.  Repeating the same drill from the previous morning, I headed out determined to get another good brown as this would be my last chance at fishing for the trip.  I decided to head back to “the Cliffs” as both Eric Cole and I had really good hits their the evening before.  As I trolled from the resort to “the cliffs”, I was marking quite a few bait fish but surprisingly, was not getting bumped at all.  As I got to “the Cliffs”, the larger arcs started to show up, just as I suspected they would.  Within a couple minutes, the rod in my hand began to pump.  I set the hook and fish-on.  I kicked the boat into neutral and stood up to fight the fish I had on.  About twenty seconds into the fight, I felt the fish release.  Almost SIMULTANEOUSLY, out of the corner of my eye, my downrigger started pumping and I watched the rod get pulled out of the clip.  “OH CRAP!”.  I set my other rod down quickly and raced to my downrigger rod.  My hands grabbing the cork handle were met with a significant head-shake and 20 foot line peel.  I let out an excited “yip” and the battle was on!  As I was fighting this fish’s efforts to try and throw my lure, I began to get a runny nose, or so I thought.  It was cold out, so I tried to wipe my nose while still going toe-to-toe with the opposing brown.   Instead of a runny nose, I had a BLOODY NOSE.  GREAT!!!  So, what am I supposed to do?  Do I A) try and fight the fish and grab the roll of toilet paper in my storage compartment potentially causing a 3-ring circus on my boat and risk losing the fish? Or do I B) focus on the task at hand and let my nose bleed like I’m Rocky Balboa that just took a bludgeoning right-cross to my face from Ivan Drago?  I choose B) IVAN DRAGO IT IS!!!! 

After a few minutes of give and take and blood from my nose splattering all over my boat making it look I just slaughtered a small animal, I finally got the brown in.  He was nearly a twin to the fish I caught on Sunday evening, at 5.5 lbs, but 23 inches (1/2 inch longer than Sunday’s hookjaw).  I was pleased.  I tried to clean my face off from the impeccably timed gusher befallen upon my nose, but to little avail.  Hey, this fish put up a great fight, but after it was said and done, he might of got my nose, but I got him by TKO!  HAHA! 

Stats for the trip were 13 fish landed and released in 11 total hours of fishing.  I lost just as many with a couple nice ones that came unbuttoned.  The largest were (2) 5.5 lb hookjaws, (1) 4 lb hen, (3) 3 to 3.5 lbers, and then a bunch of dinks.  For hardly getting any fishing in, I was very pleased with my results.  I had a report from Dan McAllister a couple days prior stating kokanee patterns were the only thing the fish would touch.  Well, that completely changed as all my fish were on chub and rainbow patterns.  GO FIGURE!  I tried Bombers, Rapalas, AC Plugs, TrophySticks, and Yo-Zuris.  My best producers were Chub Patterned Bombers and Rainbow Rapalas.   The fish in the early AM/Late PM were a little shallower than when they were when sunlight was on the water.  I was catching them about 20 to 25 feet deep really early, but I caught a couple as deep as 40 feet.   I wish I had more time to fish to really focus on what patterns worked best at which locations (pending depth and time of day), but I was grateful for the time I had.  Plus, when I get to spend the majority of the time with my wife and son at East Lake, life doesn’t get much better!

One more thing, a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to East Lake Resort owners, David and Kathy Jones, on their first grandchild!  A baby boy at 8lbs, 10 oz, born on 8/8/11! 

Take care, and best of luck on your next fishing adventures!

Brian

Aka B-Wild