After several failed attempts at asking neighbors or good buddies to go fishing with me, none of which panned out for various reasons, I remembered that some of my closest cousins would love to go if they could make it happen.  Since both of them are foresters, Aaron Aasen works for Roseburg Resources Co. & Andrew Aasen works for Lone Rock Timber Co, I knew this was the heart of spraying season but after a phone call to Aaron he jumped at the opportunity.  With everything detail worked out, we met up on the lake late Friday night and got things unloaded and into our yurt. 

Saturday morning came early and it stormed something fierce throughout the night.  In fact, there were many times I was thinking a tree was going to come crashing down into our quarters.  By mornings light, all was good, but the wind continued to howl and the steady rain continued its downpour.  After getting my cold weather/rain gear on and the water boiling for instant coffee, I told the guys I was going to run down to the boat ramp and check to make sure the boat was still on shore!  As I was pulling into the boat ramp, I was surprised to see headlights of someone already unloading their boat into the lake.  Thankfully, I confirmed my boat was still on shore.  I then proceeded to introduce myself to the fellow brown trout fisherman.  I can’t recall his name, but he said he had driven over that morning from Redmond to fish.  I thought, “man, this guy is hardcore and ready to get after it in this nasty weather!  I better get back to the yurt to pick up my cousins so we can get out there after it.”   When I got back to the yurt, the boys were ready to go, and the coffee was made.  We hurried back to the boat ramp, and about that time the rain lightened up to a steady but light rain.

Unfortunately, instead of being able to just jump in the boat and start fishing, I was greeted with about 10 to 15 gallons of water in the back of my boat from the hard rain that fell the night before.  I pumped and bailed for 15 minutes before getting everything cleared out.  Finally around 6 a.m., we were ready to fish!  I set the boys up with a couple bomber lures while I put on a Lucky Craft Pointer 128 in Aurora Black.  My plan was to flat line their rods while I took a little deeper run of 12’ to 15’.  I steered the boat over 18’ to 24’ of water along the shoreline and worked the lures hard over underwater structure.  Finally my brain said “rip the lure you lazy ass”, so I gave it a couple rips!  After only the second rip, I felt a fish miss the lure as it fluttered back.  We went a little further down the shoreline, and I started ripping again.  Instantly, I got hit and it was fish on!  I handed the rod off to Aaron, and he reeled in a dink of around 12 inches or so.  We were glad the skunk was off the boat, and we quickly turned around to go back through where we just had success.  About 15 minutes later, while we were rounding a corner, Aaron hollered “I got a FISH!”.  Andrew and I looked up at his rod and it was warped over and throbbing with headshakes of a nice one!  I told Drew to reel in his gear and we asked Aaron how this one felt.  He instantly said it feels a helluva lot bigger than the one I handed him.  I smiled and said “Awesome buddy!  This is why we are out here in these conditions working for browns!”  As the fish slowly came in towards the boat, it stayed deep and pulled line hard a couple times.  In the early morning light, we were finally able to make out a silhouette of a really nice brown!  It was a beautiful hen.  After a few more runs, she was ready for the net and I scooped her up.  We all whooped and hollered and high fived!  What a dandy brown trout and clearly the biggest one Aaron has ever caught, especially since this was his first TTH experience.  The long hen of 26.5” weighed 7 pounds in the net after deductions.  We got a lot of pictures and then videotaped the release.    Aaron was one happy camper and I was thrilled to have put my cousin on the biggest trout of his life!

A few hours later, Aaron’s ripping was met with a good takedown.  This time a big black spotted silvery colored brown was fooled by a silver minnow lure.  We weighed the 22” hookjaw at 4 pounds and then sent him on his way.  Then in the same area, Aaron hooked a fish while we were reeling in our gear less than 50 feet from the boat!  This brown hit so hard that he swung and missed but somehow the Owner hook stuck in the top of his dorsal fin.  We were all fooled thinking this could be a hog brown, when I finally netted the sweet looking 4 pound male.  This guy was a slab with big deep fillets and some really neat red spots near his tail.  Unfortunately, the slimy sucker wiggled out of Aaron’s hands before we could get a good picture and into the lake he swam off! 

Around 1 p.m., we decided to go in and take about a 2 hour break to get dried out and warmed up from the cold and steady light rain all morning.  Lunch tasted great and we stoked up a fire in the little wood stove.  It took a little while to get warm in the yurt, but once we got the stove hot enough, boy did it feel great in there!  We headed back out around 3, and found the afternoon to be a little slower.  A few dinks were to be had, and then around 7:30 p.m., Aaron hooked another good one.   This time we were over 30’ of water or so, but fishing the lures at the same depth we found success at.  Sure enough, a dandy 4-1/2 pound hen came in for a visit.  We got some more pics of Aaron with his prize and then sent her on her way.   Saturday would come to an end with 13 browns to the boat, with five of them being 4 pounds or bigger.  Not a bad day of brown fishing by anyone’s standards!

Sunday morning was a repeat of Saturday morning, but worse………WAY worse!  It sounded like a hurricane outside while getting ready in the yurt.  Torrential downpours and raging winds were on tap.  I don’t think any of us were too gung-ho about hitting it, but after Saturday’s success we pushed on hoping for a repeat.  Once again, the back of the boat was literally swamped with rain water and I spent precious time bailing it out.  Finally, we got out on the water fishing.  It poured and poured some more for the first two and a half hours and then the cold front finally came in and snow began to fall on the lake.  We only had one dink to show for the first three hours of effort and everyone was freezing out fast.   Once the bitter wind of the cold front hit the lake in full force, we called it a trip a few hours earlier than we had hoped. 

We went back to the yurt, built another fire, and enjoyed some breakfast while drying out and warming up.  Despite the ugly April weather conditions, we managed some incredible browns and memories that will last forever. 

Until next time,

R.D.

“Browns – Coyotes of the Fishing World!”