Wildish Family Summer Trip

My lovely wife, Anna, and I have been traveling each summer to Central Oregon since we first started dating back in 2005. One of our favorite destinations is Newberry Crater. When we began to have children, we decided that we wanted to start a family tradition where we would go to the same place every year. A place to create memories with our children, hopefully sowing the seeds of adventure that they could pass down to their children and so on. That place has become East Lake Resort.

We excitedly arrived on Sunday afternoon. With (2) very young boys and 4 hours on the road, they were bouncing off the walls to get out of my truck and start exploring. Zachary, our youngest son, was experiencing the beauty of this dormant volcano for the first time ever. His older brother Jackson had been here twice and even though he’s only 3, you could tell that he did recognize the lake. Anna and I both just held each other in contentment as we breathed in the sparkling scenery that rested before us.

“Ready to go fish, Dadda?” beckoned Jackson.

“In a minute, buddy. We need to be patient” I proudly responded. I was beaming with satisfaction that my son wanted so badly to go fishing. I believe he was more excited not only that he was getting to go fishing with dad, but it would be on a boat, and after his bedtime!!

I met up with my friend, Kory, who was looking for a new place in Oregon to bring his family to for a summer vacation. For the past several years, Kory and his family have met at Curlew Lake up in Washington. He said it’s a beautiful place, but it takes over 8 hours to get up there. Couple that with the fact that he and his wife, Nanette, have (3) children under the age of 5, they needed some place a little closer to home. By pure coincidence, Kory ended up booking his trip to East Lake the same time we had reserved. It was just meant to be.

Jackson and I approached Kory’s 16’ Hewescraft with anticipation bursting at the seams. Kory and his oldest son, Gavin, were in the boat already doing a last check of all the gear. Kory is very new to the trophy trout fishing for browns. I took him earlier this spring where he got introduced really quick to how good it can be. I don’t know who was more excited about fishing. Us or our boys. Kory was amped as this was a brand new lake to learn. Gavin was pumped to just be fishing. I was stoked that I was teaching someone a new drill and I was fishing with my son. Jackson was just happy to be fishing with his dad (as was I J).

We trolled Westward towards the White Slide. We stayed in deeper water, ranging from 30 to 70’ of water, scouring for schools of kokanee. Where there’s kokanee, there’s usually hungry browns nearby. It wasn’t 2 minutes of being on the water when the graph lit up like a Christmas Tree. There were schools of kokanee everywhere and large arcs surrounding them. “BINGO” I exclaimed. Kory was eager to see one of our rods go off.

An hour passed by and we did not have a bump to show for our effort. It was a bit surprising. However, I knew with the amount of fish we were seeing it would be just a matter of time. The boys were happy as clams just eating snacks and babbling at each other. Kory and I were silently stewing over the rods, trying to will them to get bit with thoughts of “Come on!!!” and “Get bit…NOW!”. Finally I see one of the rods get bounced hard. I pulled it out of the clip, set the hook and was met with an immediate hard-tug! “FISH ON, BOYS!”

I quickly told Jackson to come near me and start fighting the fish. You see, Jackson has never caught a fish before. Granted, I’ve only taken him a couple times. During those times, he’s the one that dictates how hard we fish. Sometimes the “fishing” constitutes throw rocks at our bobber, splashing our feet in the water, banging on the gunwales of the boat. But he was much more interested this go-around. I seated him solidly against me with my arms surrounding him and holding the fishing rod. I held the rod and guided his hand on trying to reel. As you can imagine, this was very foreign to him. He tried reeling for a while. He tried holding the rod. After about 20 seconds he said “Dad, you get him!” So, I fought the fish in. I caught a glimpse of the fish in the remaining sun beams that eeked over the crest of the ridge off to the West. “OH CRAP. That’s a GOOD fish boys!” Kory got the net and landed him quickly.

This made the trip, even if we didn’t catch another fish! For the remainder of the trip, Jackson was constantly asking to go fishing. And I’m proud to say that he got a full taste of the “highs” and “lows”. One late morning, Jackson caught 5 fish, lost 3, and lost a VERY large one. A nice “high”. That evening, we were met with a “low” with not a bump. The following morning, we didn’t have a bump for the first hour. Then we were finally met with a nice tug. Jackson reeled in the fish very well and low and behold, it was a 23.5”, 5 lb gorgeous male brown. I couldn’t believe after I had the fish in the livewell for a bit to revive, that Jackson wanted to hold him and pose for a quick pic. He did great and afterwards, we let him go. Jackson waved “Bye-Bye Fishy” and then turned to me and said “He’s going to be alright, Dad!” It such a great feeling to start exposing my son to this type of fishing and to practice catch and release on some of these bigger fish.

We did have some tremendous wind and thunderstorms that affected the bite and the amount that we fished. It also affected my ability to take out the resort owner, David Jones in the evening. He and his wife, Kathy, work so hard during the summer that I thought I’d try and give Dave a little break and try and get him a nice brown. We ended up making it a rain-check. Dave, I promise, you and I are going to fish this place, Trophy Trout Hunter style!

We had some great times as a family, having picnics on the beach, grilling up hot-dogs, roasting marshmallows, flying kites, and just enjoying the lake and all her surroundings. We were able to create some great memories with our children that we will continue to build upon for the future. I know the Thaut’s and ourselves have already booked our trip for next year to the Crater. A huge thanks to Dave and Kathy Jones and their staff for making it a great place for our families. If you haven’t been to East Lake Resort, I highly recommend it not only has a fishing destination, but a family destination.

Best of luck to all you in your next fishing adventure.

Brian (aka Bwild)