I woke up early Friday morning so I could get up and go to work, put in about 6 hours so I could tie up some loose ends prior to my highly anticipated fishing trip to Crescent Lake for the weekend.  I was taking a co-worker and good friend of mine, Jonathan Svoboda, on his first-ever trophy trout hunting trip.   Jonathan originally hails from the San Antonio, Texas area.  He and his wife and their lovely family now live in Portland, Oregon due to his wife’s 4-year fellowship as a pediatric neurologist at OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University).   Jonathan has never been exposed to this type of climate, let alone experienced hard-core trophy trout fishing at lakes that we are all accustomed to here in the Western United States.  I just hoped and prayed that I’d be able to get Jonathan into his largest trout ever (which would be 2 lbs).  Not a difficult task when you’re going after big ones, but I also knew that although Crescent Lake can be very bountiful and fruitful in providing large trout, she can also be one of the more difficult lakes to tackle due to her crystal clear, blue waters.

I arrived at my house after working the early morning hours at about 10:30 AM.  I’d packed all of my camping and fishing gear the night before.  All I had to do was quickly change my clothes, hook up my boat, wait for Jonathan to arrive and off we were to go catch some monster trout.  As I approached my truck (I typically drive a different commuter car to work), I found it strange when I went to unlock the truck that it was already unlocked!!  Then I noticed my passenger-side door was just barely open and not being flush with the cab of the truck.  “What the…?”  I opened the door and noticed the glove box was open, there were items strewn about.  “OH NO!”  I hurriedly scanned the back of my cab and saw my clothes, sleeping bag and been rummaged through and moved.  Then the heart-sinking reality sunk in as I scoured for my blue-backpack that is actually a tackle box.  “OH GOD!  NO!  NO!!!”  I was shaking with adrenaline and dumbfounded.  My truck had been broken into and the only thing taken was my tacklebox!!!  I reported it immediately to the police department and come to find out I was the 5^th phone call for that morning.  All cars were unforced entries.  They think they must’ve picked the lock somehow or have an electronic descrambler.

Great!  Jonathan is on his way, now I don’t have my GPS, Camera, Lures, Hooks, Fishing Line, Spare Reels, Scale, Swivels, and so on and so on.  What do I do?!?!  Fortunately, I had enough spare stuff in my garage that I could haphazardly throw together a make-shift, skeleton tacklebox.  I was going to be dammed if I wasn’t still taking my friend fishing because of some meth-head that stole from me to go make a quick buck to feed his sad addiction.  Jonathan showed up and I told him the story.   I said we’re still going and come hell or high water, I’m going to make sure you get the largest trout of your life.

We arrived at Crescent Lake around 5 pm and  I launched my boat.  I noticed one of my tires looked like it had a “Bubble” in it.  One of the bands must’ve broken in the tire on the way up and was probably just a few miles from blowing up.  GREAT!!! Now I have to replace it with a spare.  Now very frustrated but bound and determined not to let this tumultuous rain-cloud that seemed to be ever-bearing overhead, we were going fishing! 

Jonathan was in awe of Crescent Lakes beauty.  And rightly so!  Not a breath of wind was blowing across her pristine glass surface.  He was beside himself with the scenery.   He couldn’t believe “there are so many trees” and “look at those snow-capped mountains”.  I told him “Imagine that now as your back-drop with you holding a monster trout.”  He said “Man, my weekend is already made.  This is AWESOME!”  It was indeed.

A couple hours had passed as I was scouring the shoreline and different depths with my bombers, rapalas, and trophysticks in tow.  We came across a favorite point of  mine and I figured it was about time to switch out lures.  With Jonathan’s single rod and me with my two rod stamp, we began to reel in the 3 rods.  We had (2) rods in and Jonathan began to reel in the final rod.  As I was getting the other rods lures unhooked, I looked over at Jonathan to make sure he was doing alright and I saw the tip of his rod start moving.  Excitedly, I asked “Dude, do you have a fish on?”  He replied back “Yeah man!”  I said “Is it a good one?”  He said “I don’t know, I’ve never caught one of these before.  But it does feel heavy.”  I coached him on keeping his rod tip up.  I had told him in a conversation we had previously on our drive up that big browns in cold water tend to A) Feel heavy and swim to the boat and B) they stay deep.  I asked him how it felt, he said “Heavy but it feels like it’s swimming at the boat.”  Good Sign!  I then noticed his rod tip and the location of the line in relation to it.  Straight down and staying deep.  A VERY GOOD SIGN!!  The trout showed itself.  1) It’s Golden and 2) has a square tail.  It’s a brown.  Then I went “Oh crap!  That’s a good one, man!”  I hurriedly grabbed the net and told Johnathan “Keep the rod tip up and pressure on but let it play out.”  I swooped the net over the gunwale by Jonathan, the fish was already on his side and he was ours!!!! WOOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I then really took in what the fish looked like and went “Jonathan, dude!  You just caught a NICE brown!”  Then I looked at it and instead of getting smaller, it was getting bigger.  As I didn’t have a scale nor a measuring tape, it was going to be difficult to get an exact measurement on this fish.  I knew the area of the livewell I have where Jonathan was sitting was ~ 24” from the side of the console to my side, gunwale storage box.  The fishes tail extended way past it.  I started thinking back to all the browns I’ve either caught, netted, or witnessed to really gauge what this fish was.  I called it.  “Jonathan, that is a 28 inch, 8 lb hookjaw brown!  WAY TO GO BUDDY!”   We high-fived, hooped and hollered.  I was able to get Jonathan into the biggest trout of his life, and in the first two hours of fishing.  After several photos, we released the gorgeous male back into the beautiful 39 degree waters of Crescent to get bigger.  Check out this awesome video of the release.

The rest of the evening was to no avail on the fishing front.  We shared stories around the campfire with RD, Dan McAllister, Bret Martin, Jimmy Lewis and Jordan Whitton.   We were getting excited for what the next few days would bring.

Alas, the rest of the trip was a bust with one take-down/drive-by on a 6.5” Trophystick.  We tried for lakers as several other of our friends were up there.  Joe Moritz (aka Fish-on-Bend) scored 6 lakers, with the two largest being a 19 lb and a 21.5 lb lake trout.  Way to Go Joe!

Dan Lippis scored a couple nice lakers to, one that was 11#’s and then a 15 lber!  Here’s his wife Carrie holding up the 15 lber!  Awesome!

Kasey Ackley (Brian Shenk’s Fiance) scored herself a great-looking, 33inch, 14 lber!  Look at the size of that fish!

Saturday evening, we ended up all hanging out at the Crescent Lake Bar/Restaurant and just had a great time telling fishing stories.  Dan Lippis had never really hung out with us before so he got a taste of all of us.  He said he had a great time so good thing we didn’t scare him away! 

Jonathan and I left Sunday morning to get back as he had a function to participate at with his wife later with some of her co-workers.  It wasn’t the best trip in terms of results, but those were some of the most beautiful conditions I’ve EVER experienced, especially in April in the Cascades.  I told Jonathan he got spoiled with catching an 8 lb hookjaw brown and basically had summer-like conditions that do not occur very often this time of year at Crescent.  However, I think I got him hooked as he’s really considering on purchasing a boat.  I don’t blame him! 

On a final note, so many of the trophy trout hunters up there were offering their lures and tackle to me with open arms.  Jimmy Lewis gave me (2) tackle boxes to use full of AC Plugs and Bettencourt Bait Assassins.  When I did a rough guesstimate of the value, I said to Jimmy “Dude, this is like $1200 to $1500 worth of lures.”  He said “They’re yours to use buddy.  Just get ‘em back to me when you’re done.”  Joe and Dan Lippis were telling me everything to use and try on the lakers (mostly lymans and silver hordes) and what speeds and depths to try.  I was a “day late and a dollar short”, but just everyone so willing to help.  That’s what this website is all about and why I’m so glad to be a part of it.  Thanks to all of you. 

The final tally of my tacklebox is over $5200.  We’ll see how much my insurance company covers it as there were several discontinued and custom-painted lures.  Word of advice, if you don’t have receipts, take photos of your lures and fishing gear once a year.  Lay them all out and just snap photos.  Do it yearly as we always seem to acquire new stuff over the course of a year.  I know I learned my lesson.

I’m glad I was able to get Jonathan into the largest trout of his life.  And like I told him “Look man.  Everything maybe ‘bigger’ in Texas, but I guarantee you Oregon’s trout top Texas’s any day.”  He smiled at me and said “I can’t argue with that!”  Everything’s bigger in Texas….except trout!

Take care all and best of luck in your future fishing trips,

Brian Wildish (aka Bwild)