Summertime Fishing Success - Crescent Lake, OR

I had my best trip ever! Fished legal light Saturday morning, started from lodge and worked 25-35' depth all the way from simax to tandy bay and around to last summer home. Nothing but a dink brown for all that. I then switched to lakers, ran four rods on two downriggers. Wasn't marking very many fish, just couldn't find them! Worked the south end, rainbow point, boy scout and out in the middle in deep water. No love on macks, stingy bastards! :) Took a long break on shore with friends and family during afternoon and had a great time in the hot sun...nothing better than chilling on shore listening to music, bbqing, sucking on a few suds, playing with the dogs, etc...great times!

Anyways...back to fishing! My father in law and I got back to fishing Saturday afternoon around 4pm or so. Decided to get back to the brown trout drill, but was feeling lazy so I put both rods on downrigger and just trolled around. I started at last summer home and trolled towards tranquil cove. Rod pops off, feels like a decent fish...landed a decent mack. Didn't weigh it, probably about 10 lbs or so. Woo hoo, on the board! Wasn't expecting to catch a fish that time of day, good lesson for me! We were marking lots of fish in that area between last summer home and that small point before you get to the island. We ran thru that section once more with no luck. Continued on towards tandy bay and worked that area hard. About 6pm downrigger pops off again...yee haw, fish on! Feels like a real good one this time, I was stoked!!! It was putting up a great fight! I don't have much experience, but it certainly felt different than most fish I've caught on long line and I was thinking this might be a brown instead of the usual small lakers we catch doing this drill. Fish was headshaking hard, holding deep and started to swim sideways away from the boat, this is when I knew I had a decent fish on. I finally saw it boil 20 yards or so behind the boat...I saw the brown spots...oh my God, it's a big brown, it's a big brown! I was flipping out!!! My heart was pounding so hard...I'm usually calm in most situations, but I was SO excited!!! Finally got her close to the boat and got a good look at her...short but thick hen...woo hoo!!! Me and my newbie ways...I had the drag a little too tight and she took off under the boat, luckily I reacted quickly and flipped the bail while thumbing the spool...phew, that was close!!! I kept working her in and she'd take off on long runs under the boat, so fun!!! Finally she laid on her side just long enough for Gene to slip the net under her...yah baby!!!

We kept her in the water and I was lucky enough to perform my best hook release ever, I was very happy to limit the damage to her. We got the camera and scale ready while keeping her in the water and quickly took a couple pics...put her back in the water...then weighed her in the net. I was surprised that she only weighed 5 lbs 10 ozs! She taped out at 22", short and fat! Not a monster, but man I was elated beyond words. It had been a long while since I caught anything over 5 lbs and without a doubt this girl put up the best brown trout fight I've ever experienced, what a joy! We released her back into the gorgeous clear waters and she swam away strong. This made the trip totally worth it and anything after this was just a bonus. She was caught with downrigger set at 24'; we were working the 30-38' range, that's where most of the fish seemed to be.

We continued to work this area and called it just before sunset with no more luck.

Slept in Sunday morning and Carrie and I started fishing about 8 am. We were marking lots of fish between last summer home and Tandy Bay on Saturday, so I figured why go anywhere else! Ran same lure on the downriggers. About 10 am downrigger pops off and we landed a decent one...didn't measure it.

Kept in the same area and landed another decent one just south of the last summer home around 12 noon. We were so stoked to get a couple more fish! I was content to call it a day and head back to Portland.

Definitely one of the best fishing trips we've ever had! I've been trying so hard to land a decent brown and all the hard work finally paid off. Not a huge fish, but for us it was a gem. I want to thank you, Wildish and everyone at TTH for all the help...thanks for taking me in!!!

Biggest lesson for me...you can catch browns at all times of the day! Of course you know this, but it's a lesson that needs to be taught by experience.

I'll send pics later.

Dan Lippis (aka Crazy-D)