Mid-April Crescent Lake Trip

Arrived a little too late to fish on Thursday night after the 3 hour drive from home. Shortly after arriving to Crescent Lake, I get a call from good buddy, Dan McAllister, that he just narrowly avoided a head-on collision with a small herd of mule deer on Highway 97. When he swerved through the herd, he thought he had just skinned a cat by avoiding them all, then all of a sudden "BOOOM"!!! Dan looked in the mirror and one poor muley was not so lucky. This deer proceeded to plow head-on into the side of the Lund boat which resulted in multiple 360 degree spins across the other lanes of traffic like a top, before coming to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Fortunately for us, the Lund was fine other than some deer hair inside the vessel and a busted up plastic fender on the trailer. Unfortunately for the deer, however, it would be vulture stew for the weekend.

Before Dan could pull into the lake, our other good buddy, Jordan Whitton arrived in his Toyota pickup. It had been a full year since I had last seen Jordan so we chatted for a bit until Dan got to the lake. It was great to see Jordan and catch up a bit! Once Dan arrived we all listened to the details of the mule deer incident and then proceeded with unloading the boat into the lake for a first light adventure the next morning. Little did we know what was in store for us. After Dan backed down the trailer, Jordan fired up the Honda 4-Stroke and she purred like a kitten on the second try. Jordan backed the boat off the trailer and I walked down the dock with my headlamp on to help him tie off. As Jordan kicked the motor into gear, the engine started to sound really rough and immediately DIED! After multiple tries the engine would not start and Jordan had to use an oar to get over to the dock. We didn't think much of it, and left to setup camp thinking we would let the engine unflood itself. About an hour later, we returned with once again no luck at starting the engine. We went to bed praying she would crank over in the morning.

Up and at em bright and early, we packed our gear down to the boat dock and loaded it into the Lund. After several more failed attempts at starting the motor, we knew right then and there that this trip was not getting off on the right foot! We also knew we had a BIG problem on our hands as well. Dan made an early morning call to our good friend, Brian Sanchez, as he knows quite a bit about 4-Stroke outboard motors. We pulled off the cover and checked to make sure we were getting a nice spark across the plugs. Check. We pulled the gas line loose from the in-line fuel filter and pumped the ball to make sure we were getting fuel to the filter. Check. All fluids were full and primed. Check. Seemed like everything we checked was good to go. I got back by the transom and tried to help Dan and Jordan out. My motor on my boat is a 2-Stroke, so I know little about the 4. Still I tried like Hell to help out. I grabbed the loose fuel line and told Dan to give it a couple squirts with the ball. He did and immediately I saw WHITE in the fuel as it hit the lake. I knew that wasn't right, so I told Jordan to grab an empty bottle and we filled it up with the gas. As we let it settle in the bottle, you could soon see what appeared to be two separate liquids in the bottle. It soon dawned on us that we had WATER inside our main gas tank which is a built-in tank on the Lund. A sickening feeling came over all of us, but optimism of knowing what our issue was was encouraging. We thought that if we could buy a separate portable gas tank with the correct fittings, we could plumb that directly to the Honda 4-Stroke engine and it should run fine. Soooo........after a quick trip to the La Pine Bi-Mart, we got what we needed. We filled up our new tank with gas and headed back for Crescent. On the way, Dan talked to another buddy named Paul Butler who also knew a lot about 4-Strokes. He advised that we drain the existing carburetors of their "bad" gas before pumping the new into the engine. Sure enough, just as Paul described, there were three different set screws on the engine that needed opened up in order to drain the bad fuel. Dan busted each one loose, and immediately you could see the "white" fuel drain from them. It was a great feeling and a great relief when we saw this happening. After getting everything reassembled and hooked up to the new fuel tank, the Honda fired right up after the second try! We were stoked and knew we could FINALLY go fishing. This was around 10:30 am on Friday morning. Dan, Jordan, and myself would like to send out a VERY sincere gratitude of Thanks to both Brian Sanchez and Paul Butler for all their help in aiding us to solve our engine trouble!!! We would also like to thank Brian Wildish and Jimmy Lewis for coordinating bringing up a spare 7.5hp 2-stroke kicker motor just in case our Plan "A" didn't pan out! Thanks again guys!

With a renewed sense of being, we all headed out into the crystal clear waters of Crescent in hopes of landing our first trout of the trip. It took quite a while, but I finally chased the skunk off the Lund while casting a kokanee colored Rapala down in Tandy. The 18" or so brown scrapped its way to the boat and it felt good to land our first fish. After a quick release, we all cast some more. I was soon into another brown about the same size. Once again, after the release, I got hit a little harder this time and we all saw a descent sized golden yellow flash of the brown doing underwater cartwheels. This one came off about as quickly as it hit, but from the size of the flash, we all agreed it looked like a 4 pounder sized brown. This was encouraging and we gave the casting drill another hour or so. Unfortunately for us, that was it for the day.

Saturday we headed out for a spot on the lake where we thought might produce. Within the first 15 minutes of having lures in the water, my rod got hit by a scrappy brown pushing the 3lb. mark. This fish came on a rainbow patterned rapala. Another quick release, and we were back to fishing. We didn't go another 100 yards, and I look over about the time Jordan's rod doubles over in the holder! BIG Fish with lots of power as Jordan jumps to his feet to grab the pole. He gets ahold and has the fish on. We see it jump and thrash on top of the water way behind the boat. This brown had a huge tail fin as it tried to throw the lure. Next thing Dan and I hear from Jordan is "OHHHHHH NOOOOO!!!!!". We look up and see his line is no longer tawt! After futher examination, the big brown completely sawd through the 15lb. test line on the jump. Definitely the one that got away story. Later on Dan put a small brown in the boat, but that was it for us on Saturday.

Sunday came early, but we all knew this was our last morning to make it happen. Up until now we had 4 browns to the boat with lots and lots of hours on the water. Times were tough, but we all knew at any minute that any of us could hook the biggest fish of our lives. We motored back to the area where Jordan lost the dandy the morning before. There was something about the early morning bite on this trip, and we were all excited to get our one chance. We all put on our trusty bomber lures in kokanee color and hit the shallows for a flatlining drill. Just like the previous morning, it didn't take long and this time my rod got slammed hard! I quickly got it out of the holder and held on. Instantly I could feel this fish had power as I gained nothing on the line. This fish just stood its ground. Both Dan and Jordan got their lines in before I had gained 50 feet of line back on this trout. About that time, the fish jumped clear out of the water and we all seen it was a pretty good sized splash way behind the boat. I slowly brought this fish towards the boat and it stayed nice and deep as it approached. This is generally a good sign you got a "good" one on. All three of us finally got a good glimpse of the fish and made it out as a nice brown! The big female danced and bull-dogged a bit around the boat, but had worn herself out on the initial hit and thrashing on top of the water. After a little give and take, Dan scooped her into the rubber net beautifully. The brown looked really thick and fat to me, but not super long. In my mind I was thinking like 8 pounds or so, but then Dan said "Nice one R.D., I'm gonna say a good solid 6.5 to 7 pounds!". Jordan agreed, and I was sitting there baffled thinking "Dang guys, are you sure?" It looks heavier than that to me. But knowing how many HUGE browns BOTH of these guys have put in the boat, I wasn't about to question either of them! THEN it happened..........that moment where you go to lift the fish into the boat for pictures, measurements, etc. Dan gave out a grunt as he heaved the netted fish into the Lund! "HOLY SMOKES, Coyote!!! This fish is way bigger than 6.5 to 7!" We quickly put the Boga-Grip scale to the net, and I called out "14.5 Pounds!!!", which after subtracting out the 5.5lbs of net gave the Big Hen a 9 Pound weight! We all high-fived and celebrated! She taped out to 27 inches long. This fish was just stacked as you can see from the picture.